
Book /' J/-Z 



THE CONFESSIONS 

OF A LITTLE MAN 

DURING GREAT DAYS 

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF 

LEONID ANDREYEV 

BY R. S. TOWNSEND 




ALFRED A. KNOPF 

NEW YORK MCMXVII 



Ao 

■Alz 



Printed in Great Britain 
by Turnbull &* Spears, Edinburgh 



THE CONFESSIONS 

OF A LITTLE MAN 

DURING GREAT DAYS 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE 
MAN DURING GREAT DAYS 

PART I 

St Petersburgh, 
28*4 August 1914. 

To speak with a clear conscience as one 
does at confession, even now I can't make 
out why I was in such a panic on that day. 
War is war, we all know ; no one greets 
its coming with delight ; still, it is a simple 
matter, when all is said and done ; we 
have been through it before. The Japanese 
War is still fresh in our memories. At 
present, for example, when bloody battles 
are being fought, I have no sense of fear, 
and live as I always do. I go about my 
work, see my friends, indulge in a theatre 
or a picture- show, and were it not for my 

A 1 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

wife's brother, Pavel, being at the war, I 
could almost forget, on occasions, the 
terrible events that are happening. 

Of course, I don't deny that there's a 
restlessness and anxiety at bottom. I 
can't exactly describe the sensation ; it's 
a kind of gnawing despair that comes over 
one mostly in the morning at breakfast. 
You no sooner open your paper (I take 
in two besides Kopeika) than you are 
brought back to the horrors that are 
happening over there to those poor Belgians, 
to their houses and children, and you feel 
as though some one had poured cold water 
over you, and turned you out naked on a 
frosty winter's day. Still, this sensation 
has no relation to fear ; it's merely a feeling 
of human pity for those in distress. 

As I was saying, on that first day I 
was ridiculously frightened. It makes me 
blush to think of it. I need only mention 
2 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

that on the 2nd August I paid no less than 
thirty roubles for a miserable conveyance 
to take us from Shuvalov, where we had 
been staying, back to town, and in less 
than five days I was taking the whole of 
my family back again by train, and that 
we actually remained in the country until 
the 25th August in the most peaceful manner 
possible. What a state we were in, to be 
sure ! My wife, unkempt, unwashed, dazed 
and distraught, jolted along with the 
children in the cart, while I, the head of 
the family, marched in the road by their 
side, feeling as though doomsday were 
behind us and we must run, run without 
looking back, without stopping to take 
breath, not merely to St Petersburgh, but 
to the very ends of the earth. 

All the shops along the road were selling 
bread in abundance, and I had thrust 
some stupid crusts into my pocket in case 
3 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

of need. Prudence and foresight — under 
any circumstances ! 

The weather was glorious at the time, 
but we had no faith even in the weather. 
It seemed to us that it was bound to 
pour with rain, or that a sudden snow- 
storm would descend upon us although 
it was August, and we should perish 
on the way ! How horribly we worried 
our driver ! 

Another disgraceful circumstance comes 
to my mind. I picked some blue little 
bell flower on the wayside and gave it to 
Lidotchka, my little girl, chaffing her a 
bit as I did so. It was a natural act, 
being fond of my children as I am, especially 
of Lidotchka, but it pains me to recall the 
thought that occurred to me at the time. 
I congratulated myself on not having lost 
my head like other people, since there I 
was picking flowers, joking and trying to 
4 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

cheer up my family. An extraordinary 
act of heroism ! 

With what a sense of relief did we 
tumble into the house ! Beside ourselves 
with joy as we lighted the candles (the 
electric light was disconnected owing to 
our absence) and seated ourselves at the 
table round the samovar. 

The most astonishing thing is that I 
don't know exactly when the absurd panic 
left me, nor how it happened that five 
days later we were going calmly back 
again to the country, not the least bit 
ashamed. However, half the carriage was 
full of heroes like ourselves. I wonder 
what we must have thought of each other ? 
I don't suppose we bothered, though ; we 
were too engrossed in our journey, telling 
each other without the least embarrassment 
what we had been foolish enough to pay 
for our conveyances ! 
5 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

To do myself a little justice, I was 
largely infected by my wife's unspeakable 
horror. At any rate, that is how I explain 
our " flight from Egypt " to our friends. 
The explanation, however, does not fully 
satisfy my own conscience. Had I been a 
coward, or what might be called an effemin- 
ate person, there would have been nothing 
more to say, but, far from being a coward, 
I am a man of some courage ; a convulsion 
took place in my brain, and the world was 
turned upside down. What a fool I must 
have looked as I strutted along beside the 
cart, picking flowers into the bargain ! 
And what a smart fellow I considered 
myself, to have got that cart to save my 
family ! 

I wonder what made me go like that ? 

I know now, to be sure. The vision the 
war must have presented to me was so 
appalling and strange as to bear no resem- 
6 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

blance to a war at all. I can't recall that 
vision, no matter how hard I try. It 
must have seemed like the crack of doom, 
that the end of the world had come and 
the destruction of all living things. I 
must have heard a tremendous crash of 
thunder that cleft the earth in two, and 
we had to fly for our very lives. 

I remember one thing, however, I was 
not in the least afraid of the Germans or 
their Kaiser. I never thought of them 
at all, in fact. It must have seemed plain 
to any fool that they couldn't come flying 
to Shuvalov in a day. 

And why should I have been afraid of 
the Germans, anyway ? Weren't they 
human beings like ourselves, as much 
afraid of us as we of them ? 

We were both in the same boat, as it 
were. It was as if some antediluvian 
animals were close at our heels, crushing 
7 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

the earth with their tremendous paws. 
. . . But, no, that doesn't describe it. 
What is an animal ? Who is afraid of an 
animal nowadays ? It was something quite 
different. Some convulsion must have 
taken place in my brain as to make the 
world seem upside down — literally upside 
down — so that I seemed to be walking not 
on my feet, but on hands like an acrobat. 

I remember, too, how everything aston- 
ished me on the road that day ; the most 
ordinary little thing with no claim to the 
remarkable whatever. For instance, a man 
would be coming down the road, and as 
I watched him moving his legs, I thought, 
" c Fancy that, he's walking ! " Or a hen 
would run out of some yard, or a little 
kitten would sit on a patch of weeds, and 
again I wonder, " A kitten ! " Or a " Good 
morning " said to some tradesman would 
make me marvel that he replied " Good 
8 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

morning," and not some unintelligible bla, 
bla ! We saw the streets in the town — 
again a surprise. And the policeman, too, 
standing at the corner, and one we knew 
into the bargain, brought fresh exclama- 
tions of surprise, as though at the words 
from Wilhelm " War is declared " kittens 
and policemen and streets should have 
disappeared into the infernal regions, and 
the human tongue changed to the unin- 
telligible roar of the beasts. What wild 
ideas a panic will create, to be sure ! 

It seems ridiculous to me now, and I'm 
ashamed to think of it. Another incident, 
besides the one of Lidotchka's flower, 
bothers my conscience. Whether I am a 
coward or not, after what I have stated 
above, is open to conjecture, but of my 
honesty I have always been assured. 
Here in my diary, alone with God and my 
own conscience, I may even say more ; 
9 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

I am not only honest, but remarkably 
so, and am naturally proud of the fact, 
but, however, people know what I am. 
And still, notwithstanding my honesty 
and decency, on the 2nd August, accursed 
day, I left our cook, Annisia, behind in 
Shuvalov, though she shed tears and en- 
treated me to take her. 

Even this incident produces nothing but 
a smile now. What could have happened 
to the silly thing there ? And what did 
happen, in point of fact ? She appeared 
home a couple of days later, having 
managed to conceal herself on a train, 
bringing back a jar of pickled cucumbers. 
That day, of course, the thing had an 
ugly look about it. There was I running 
away to save my family from some im- 
pending disaster, and leaving the poor 
girl behind, because there wasn't room 
enough for her in the cart, or because I 
10 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

had to leave some one behind to look after 
my property ! Under no circumstances did 
I forget my property ! 

It is consoling to think that, though 
Annisia cried and begged to be taken, she 
bore us no grudge for having left her. 
Foolish woman ! 

98ih August. 

I write this diary in the evenings on 
the pretext of working on some papers I 
sometimes bring home from the office. 
My wife is a wonderful creature in every 
respect ; she is a woman in a thousand, 
good-natured, intelligent and responsive, 
still, even a man's nearest and dearest 
hinder him from expressing his thoughts 
as he would like. To secure freedom of 
thought and expression, I must be per- 
fectly sure that no one will read what I 
write. Apart from the fact that one 
11 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

doesn't like to disclose certain things even 
to those one loves, there are dangers and 
pitfalls to be avoided that a man less wary 
than I might fall into. I don't interfere 
with other people's thoughts, and I don't 
want anyone to interfere with me. 

I am going to make a great confession. 
Notwithstanding the general misery I am 
a shamelessly happy man ! Over there a 
bloody war is raging, full of horrors, while 
here, Sashenka, my wife, is bathing the 
children. She has finished darling little 
Lidotchka and that rascal Peter, and is 
doing Jena. How sweetly she is smiling to 
herself ! When she has put the children 
to bed she will go about her own affairs, 
such as getting things ready for to-morrow, 
which will be Sunday, or she will play 
something on the piano, perhaps. 

Yesterday we had a postcard from her 
brother Pavel, so Sashenka will be happy 
12 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

and contented for a week. Of course, we 
can't tell what may happen, but if we 
don't look too far ahead, our life may be 
said to be a truly happy one. Sashenka's 
piano is a hired one ; Sashenka is very 
fond of music, and was to have entered 
the conservatoire. To economise in war- 
time she offered to give up the piano, 
but I wouldn't hear of it. Five roubles a 
month is a paltry sum for which to deprive 
the household of the pleasure of hearing 
her play. And Lidotchka, too, is beginning 
to learn. She shows remarkable talent for 
a child of six and a half. 

Yes, I am truly a happy man. I will 
mention some of the reasons of my happi- 
ness here, though I would not talk of them 
to a living soul. For one thing, I am 
forty-five years old, and no matter what 
happens I will never under any circum- 
stances be called to the colours. This is 
13 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

a thing it would hardly be safe to say to 
others ; it might lead to so much mis- 
understanding. I have to be somewhat of 
a humbug at times and pretend, as all 
the rest do, that if I were younger and 
stronger and so on, I should most certainly 
join as a volunteer, but at bottom I can't 
help rejoicing, that without in any way 
breaking the law, I can stop at home 
and not have to expose myself to some 
silly bullet. 

I confess, too, that when the men in our 
office stand round the map loudly main- 
taining that this is a great war, essential 
to some great purpose, I make no attempt 
to argue with them. What would be the 
use of any little objection I might make ? 
They would only laugh at or make sport 
of me, as they did of Vasia, the book- 
keeper, a day or two ago, almost reducing 
the poor man to tears. Besides, a few 
14 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

indiscreet words in the mood people are 
in now might be harmful. No one knows 
how they might be interpreted. 

Still, in spite of what the men in our 
office say, and the newspapers too, I am 
firmly convinced that I do not like this 
war at all. Greater minds than mine, 
such as those of scholars, politicians, or 
writers, may see some sense in this ugly 
brawl, but my small mind fails to see 
any good in it whatever. When I imagine 
myself standing in some clear field at the 
front, men aiming at me with rifle and 
gun with intent to kill — aiming, straining, 
bursting to hit me — I find it ridiculous ; 
it seems like some silly practical joke. 
Where is the particular spot they would 
find so tempting to fire at ? Is it my 
forehead, my chest, or my stomach ? 
But no matter how much I touch myself, 
nor look myself up and down, I can discover 
15 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

nothing remarkable about me. I am a 
man, just an ordinary man, and no one 
but a fool would want to fire at me. I 
had some excuse to talk of silly bullets ! 
And when my imagination carries me a 
little further, and I see a German on the 
other side of the field feeling his stomach 
and thinking what a fool I am, it is more 
than absurd, it becomes disgusting. 

Let us suppose even that the German 
was not feeling his stomach, but aiming 
with every intent to kill me, does he 
know why he wants to do it ? It's quite 
possible that I'm a fool and a coward ; 
we won't argue about that, but supposing 
I'm not the only one ? Supposing there 
are thousands, a hundred thousand men in 
St Petersburgh like me, who keep diaries 
and rejoice that they will never be called 
up nor be killed, and who argue in exactly 
the same way as I do ? 
16 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

I admit there is nothing to be proud of 
in the fact of being afraid of one's skin ; 
I hardly expect to receive the St George 
Cross for it ; I wasn't made for the St George 
Cross, and I never set up to be a hero of 
the Malakhov Hill. I have never harmed 
anyone in my life, and I have a perfect 
right to demand that no one shall harm 
me by shooting me down like a sparrow. 
I didn't want the war. Wilhelm did not 
send his ambassadors to me to find out 
if I wanted to fight ; he just said " fight," 
and that's all. Needless to say, I love my 
country, Russia, and should any fool or 
madman come to attack it, I should be 
bound to defend it, regardless of my skin. 
Were I of military age (and this in all 
honesty) I should not evade my duties 
under pretext of medical unfitness, or take 
advantage of influence and hide behind 
Auntie's skirts in the rear. I should be 
b 17 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

in my place at the front with the others, 
ready to kill or be killed. 

This is as plain as broad daylight ; but 
it so happens that I am forty-five and 
have a perfect right to stay where I am, 
to think as I choose, to be a coward or a 
fool, if I like. It is the hand of fate ! 
Instead of being Ilya Petrovitch Dementev, 
living in Post Office Street in St Peters - 
burgh, I might have been a Belgian, a 
Maeterlinck ; I might have perished beneath 
a German shell, but I am Ilya Petrovitch, 
forty-five years old, and do live in Post 
Office Street in St Petersburgh, where no 
German shell can reach me, and I am happy 
in the consciousness thereof. 

All sorts of things might have been. 
Instead of working in our particular bank, 
which is as sound as any banking house 
can well be, and likely to withstand any 
war, I might have been working in some 
18 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

wretched little business that would have 
collapsed with the first breath of war, as 
so many of them have done, and I might 
have been left homeless with my Lidotchka, 
nothing but a lottery ticket in my pocket 
and five hundred roubles in the savings 
bank — a pleasant prospect indeed ! Or I 
might have been a Pole or a Jew in Galicia 
and lain as carrion in the dust, or dangling 
from a tree. No man escapes his fate ! 

It is useless, however, to speculate on 
things that are not, and no matter how 
sorry I might feel for the Belgians or for 
our own soldiers in the trenches, I can't 
help rejoicing that I am what I am. God ! 
to think that instead of my dear Sashenka 
I might have had some wretched woman 
for a wife, of whom there are so many in 
the world ! That, too, would have been 
fate ; as it is, I can't help gloating over 
the happiness that is mine. 
19 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

Sashenka has just been playing the 
Belgian National Anthem. What beautiful 
music it is ! How exhilarating, and what 
love of freedom and country it expresses ! 
The tears came into my eyes as I listened. 
A feeling of pity for the poor Belgians came 
over me. Their beautiful anthem and 
their love of their native land availed 
them nothing ; they are being crushed by 
the confounded Germans. 

Yes, no matter what the politicians in 
our office may say, I can never agree that 
this war is a good war. How absurd to 
think of it ! People are being crushed and 
butchered, yet they maintain that there 
is no harm in it, for when we take Berlin, 
they argue, justice will be done. What 
kind of justice, and for whom? What 
use would justice be to an unfortunate 
Belgian — a man of my age, let us say ? 
And there must be many men like me. 
20 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

Sashenka says it's late and time for bed. 
It's not my fault that after a hard, honest 
day's work I am well pleased at the prospect 
of a peaceful night's rest ! 

Petrograd, 
Tuesday, 1st September. 

This is a great, historic day. The name 
of St Petersburgh has been changed to 
Petrograd. Henceforth I shall be a citizen 
of Petrograd. It will be difficult to get 
used to the change, though it sounds so 
well. The men in our office are delighted, 
but I am sorry to lose familiar old Peters- 
burgh, St Petersburgh, into the bargain. 
Petrograd makes you feel as though you 
had been stuck in your chief's waiting-room 
for a whole day in a new coat. The coat 
was a good one, no doubt, but you 
couldn't help regretting the cast-off jacket, 
21 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

every stain of which reminded you of its 
lost comfort. 

We continue to be victorious. Prussia 
has been occupied by our troops, and 
there is a rumour that to-day or to- 
morrow, we shall take Konigsberg. This 
is becoming serious, indeed ! To-day's staff 
communique says that Lvov and Halitch 
have fallen, and that the Austrians are 
completely routed. 

I need not conceal what I am going to 
say. For all that I am a peace-loving man 
I can't help feeling the glory of it. If 
there must be a war, of course it is better 
to beat than be beaten. 

How quickly the war has spread ! How 
swift are its fiery footsteps ! I am re- 
minded of a fire I once saw in the country 
when a boy. One house caught fire at 
first, and in less than an hour every 
thatched roof in the village was ablaze, 
22 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

and there seemed no end to the sea of 
flame. 

It would be an interesting study for a 
moralist to discover what there was in 
the human soul that found satisfaction 
in watching a fire. What is it that pro- 
duces the festive sensation it gives ? Is 
it the alarm bell, the firemen's helmets, 
or the bustling crowd ? I went to a school 
in a provincial town when I was a boy, 
and I well remember how we used to run 
to watch a fire, no matter how far away 
it was. Workmen would throw down their 
tools and run, paying no heed to dusty 
clothes and grimy faces. At the cry of 
t; Fire," men and boys scrambled to the 
roofs, the iron sheets clanking as they 
went, and there they stood, arms out- 
stretched, fingers pointing in the direction 
of the fire, in the attitudes of marshals 
on monuments. Even at school we did 
23 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

not fail to rush to the windows at sound 
of the fire brigade, and the masters, too, 
were not above looking out themselves. 
And no one thought at all of the poor 
people whose house was burning. 

I confess to a certain feeling of excite- 
ment and curiosity at the European con- 
flagration, and wonder how it will change 
from day to day. I should have preferred 
peace, of course, and have no sympathy 
with the continual assertion of the men in 
our office that we should be proud to be 
living at a time like the present and going 
through this war; nevertheless, I cannot 
help being interested in the war. 

Pavel is the only load at my heart. He 
is treading as a conqueror on Prussian soil 
so far, but who knows what may happen 
to-morrow ? Where would I have been 
had I been, say, twenty or thirty, not 
forty-five ? The thought damps your 
24 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

ardour somewhat. It would be as well 
to remember it when your enthusiasm 
gets the better of you. 

Sunday, %0th September. 

It is over a fortnight since we have 
heard any news of Pavel. From his last 
letter or two we gathered that he was 
somewhere in Prussia where the Samsonov 
Corps was so completely smashed up. 
Sashenka is horribly uneasy, and added 
to that, her mother comes to us almost 
every day, and the sight of the poor old 
lady's grief upsets the whole household. 
She is here now, having come straight 
from Mass. Sashenka is giving her coffee 
in the dining-room as I write here. Besides 
Pavel, Sashenka' s mother has another son, 
Nikolai, who is married and has a family. 
The old lady lives with them, having no 
means of her own, but either because 
25 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

Nikolai is unsympathetic, or by the very 
nature of things, she is drawn more towards 
her daughter, and gives us the benefit of 
every little trouble and worry she has. 
I am not complaining of the harmless old 
lady, but I must confess I do find her 
visits rather trying at times. One day it's 
tears and complaints about Nikolai, who 
doesn't get on very well with his wife, 
another it's Pavel. There is always some- 
thing to upset Sashenka and bring discord 
into our otherwise happy family. 

I am very fond of Pavel myself, and 
can't think without a shudder that at this 
moment, as I write his name, he may be 
wounded or even killed. I awoke in the 
middle of last night and could not go to 
sleep again for two absurd, conflicting 
sensations that tormented me. I couldn't 
think of Pavel as living, yet I had no ground 
for thinking him dead. I didn't know 
26 



DURING GREx\T DAYS 

whether to pity him exposed to danger in 
the trenches, or to mourn for him dead. 

At the present moment it seems to me 
that he is alive, but sooner or later he is 
bound to be killed in this horrible war 
that is more like some wholesale butchery 
than the triumph of justice. I never argue 
with the men in our office when they 
declare that the war will be over in 
November. Their view seems to me too 
optimistic ; we can hardly expect peace 
before Christmas at least. Another four 
months are before us, and with two hundred 
thousand killed every month, what earthly 
chance can Pavel have ? 

Being a man I can look the inevitable 
in the face with fortitude, and will bear 
the blow with dignity should it befall us, 
but how about mother and Sashenka ? 
The poor old lady is ready to die at the 
merest breath of misfortune. 

n 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

When I lay awake last night I wondered 
how I w r ould break the news to mother 
in the event of the calamity happening. 
What could I say to her ? My heart 
began to beat violently at the very thought. 
To pronounce the word that is to change 
completely the aspect of the world for 
another, to make it something different 
to what it was a moment ago, is not a 
pleasant task. To be responsible for the first 
burst of grief was truly terrifying, particu- 
larly as I did not know what form it would 
take. Would it produce a flood of tears, 
one heart-rending cry, or sudden death ? 

I watched mother in the dining-room 
before I came away, as she raised a rusk 
to her mouth. I wonder what would 
happen to that rusk if I were to say that 
Pavel was killed ? " I thought. And a 
vivid picture rose up in my mind of how 
that unfortunate rusk would roll to the 
28 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

floor ; I even saw the very spot where it 
would lie, and how Annisia would pick 
it up when she swept the room, and eat 
it, little witting how it came there. 

The autumn climate of Petrograd is 
evidently having a bad effect on us all. 
The children are very fractious. Even my 
darling Lidotchka so far forgot her usually 
angelic ways and had a fight with Peter. 

The same Evening. 

I have just returned from a three horns' 
walk along the river and the Nevsky. 
Our northern capital is indeed a beautiful 
city, so grand and magnificent ! There 
are many people who compare it unfavour- 
ably with Moscow. Even the men in our 
office are often to be heard in this time- 
worn dispute, but I hold my tongue 
according to my usual habit. What is the 
use of attempting to convince the blind, 
29 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

or men who refuse to see ? The man 
who irritates me most of all in this respect 
is Zvoliansky, a Pole, who thinks himself 
competent to judge because he happened 
to have spent six months studying in Paris. 
To see the way he turns up his nose ! I 
should like to set the fool to build a city 
like ours ! 

I happened to reach the Nevsky at the 
moment when the lights went up as by 
magic, and turned the grey twilight into 
deep blue. It is really wonderful that no 
matter what the weather, be it raining or 
snowing, it seems to change with the light- 
ing of the lamps, to some enchanted 
weather of its own. I mixed with the 
crowd with a sense of pleasure ; it was 
denser and more animated than usual ; 
I moved along with it and soon found 
myself at the Admiralty without having 
noticed the way I had come. We seemed 
30 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

to be treading on air. I admired, as I 
walked, the numberless lights of green, 
white and mauve. Tramcars streamed 
past, so many that one lost count of their 
green and red lamps. Motors swept over 
the smooth bridge, their electric lamps 
looking like enormous shining eyes ; electric 
advertisements flashed in the sky ; and the 
crowd moved along noisily, onward, ever 
onward ; cabs darted in and out among 
the traffic ; a carriage with spirited horses 
flew past, taking some one to an evening 
party, no doubt. ... It is not for me 
to describe the glories of this scene ! 

On the embankment huge sombre palaces 
rose high ; the light of a passing steamer 
twinkled here and there on the dark 
surface of the water ; the Peter-Paul 
Fortress could just be discernible with its 
memorials of our Tsars. Its doleful bell 
sounded like the voice of time. . . . Silent 
31 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

couples sat on the round stone seats as 
Sashenka and I used to sit together before 
we were married, when I would put my 
hand into her warm little muff on pretext 
of feeling cold. For some time I stood 
watching the new Palace bridge in course 
of construction, thinking how that would 
add to the beauty of our wonderful city. 

Wending my way home through the 
crowd I thought of how remote the horrible 
war was from us, and how, in spite of its 
fury, it was powerless to effect human life 
and all the creations of man. How firm 
and solid everything seemed ! Trams, 
cabs, even the couples on the seats, and 
everything connected with our daily life, 
seemed to be cast in steel. I was more 
than ever ashamed of my early panic. 
What had we to fear, indeed ! 

There are rumours that Berlin is prac- 
tically in darkness, and that the Germans 
32 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

are starving. As a Russian, I suppose 
I ought to rejoice in their misfor- 
tunes, since they are to blame for this 
savage war, but . . . again I am going 
to say something I wouldn't breathe in 
our office. I am sorry for the Germans, 
if Berlin is even a little bit like our 
Petrograd. How awfully cold those poor, 
adventurous Teutons must be now, and 
how they must curse the day that they 
embarked upon this confounded war. 
" What is the good of it," they must 
think, " if for all our crime and slaughter, 
we have nothing but darkness and cold ? " 
I can't understand the sense of people 
killing each other ! 

I must go to bed. By the way, I had 
nearly forgotten — I suppose it's because 
I'm not used to keeping a diary that I 
forget the most essential things — we had 
a post-card from Pavel. He is alive and 
c 33 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

well. It came at the moment when mother 
was wrapping herself up in her shawls in 
the hall to go home. Both she and 
Sashenka were very much cheered. I 
couldn't help sharing in their happiness. 
But how frail human happiness is ! 

25th September. 

There is something very low about a 
crowd, it seems to me. One moment it 
is ready to curse the war and its cruelties, 
the next to gloat over it with a morbid 
pleasure. It may be due to our successes 
in Galicia, or perhaps to the general excite- 
ment over military engagements, but to 
my mind there is too much noise and 
rejoicing, both in the papers as well as in 
our office. No one denies that the Belgians 
are heroes and that King Albert is an 
exalted personality, worthy of his crown, 
but since the throats of these heroes are 
34 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

being cut wholesale, what is there to rejoice 
about ? I hold my tongue in my usual 
manner, of course, but their attitude is 
amazing. However, I couldn't resist the 
popular enthusiasm, and paid my tribute 
to it by buying a portrait of King Albert. 
It doesn't mean, though, that I am carried 
away by the war. The sight of staring 
head-lines such as " Yaraslav Ablaze," 
" Sandomir in Flames," sends a sharp pain 
through my brain as if some foreign matter 
had got into it. What an imagination a 
man must have to visualise the picture 
of " Yaraslav Ablaze," or " Sandomir in 
Flames " ! Unconsciously you find your- 
self thanking your stars that Petrograd is 
so far removed from those horrors. 

Ttih September. 

After great deliberation I have decided 
to let Andrei Vasilevitch read this diary, 
35 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

if he is fortunate enough to return from 
the war, that is. He was never a man to 
agree with my views ; let him judge in 
this case whether I am right or wrong. 
I found it distinctly disagreeable to read 
my remarks about my age and personal 
happiness. It seems mean to write about 
these things frankly merely for one's own 
benefit, as though one had something to 
conceal. I am not mean and have nothing 
to conceal. I merely did not wish to 
thrust my opinions on other people. I 
have nothing to hide ; my life is open to 
any man. 

Peter got an attack of quinsy and we 
had great difficulty in getting a doctor. 
Our own doctor is at the war ; those who 
have not gone away are so busy at the 
military hospitals that it is next to im- 
possible to get hold of them. I ought to 
rejoice, according to some people, that 
36 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

my sick child is deprived of medical aid, 
and to find some lofty purpose in the fact, 
but I can't. I shall always have my own 
views on the subject. 

30th September. 

In horror and trepidation have I been 
following the German siege of Antwerp. 
Thousands of heavy guns are shelling the 
town ; the ruins are in flames ; the people 
have fled ; onlv detachments of soldiers 
are to be seen in the deserted streets. 
" The sky over Antwerp is ablaze," my 
paper says, and I try to imagine the 
significance of the phrase. Zeppelins fly 
in this flaming sky and drop bombs. 
What fiends in men's shapes must they be 
to fly over this hell, over the fires, explosions, 
and roofs, and rain down more destruction 
on this blazing mass of ruins ? 

Worked on by the horrors I read in the 
37 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

newspapers I flew over blazing Antwerp 
in the night, and despite my unbounded 
terror, I could not help being envious of 
those dauntless, fearless men. Did they 
belong to a different species that they were 
not afraid and had no pity ? Why did 
their hands not tremble and their hearts 
not stop still? What kind of eyes must 
they have to peer over the sides of their 
Zeppelins (or whatever it is that they do) 
at the burning, flaming town beneath, and 
calculate and take aim ? 

The whole thing seems so much like a 
fairy tale that I can hardly believe it is 
true. If it is true, what use am I in the 
world — a sheep lagging behind the species ? 
It is only in my sleep that I can fly ; in 
my waking moments I look about for a 
spot where I can hide my head. A long 
time before the war, one of our dirigibles 
flew over the Nevsky, and we all rushed 
38 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

out of the office to admire it. How 
brilliant it looked beneath the rays of the 
sun as it soared away in the dizzy heights ! 
The people in the streets, too, craned their 
necks to have a sight of it, a tipsy civil 
servant among them, a regulation cap on 
his head, and the neck of a bottle peeping 
out of his pocket. He half closed his 
eyes as he looked, seeming to measure the 
distance, and said aloud, " It needs a sober 
man for that job ! " He ran away, and 
the rest of us laughed, but his words 
come back to me now, when I try to picture 
the blazing sky over Antwerp. Is a sober 
or a drunken man needed for that job ? 
I refuse to accept the new type that flies 
through the clouds dropping inflammable 
bombs ! He is the new despot who despises 
and oppresses all men alike. We have 
had enough of his kind — ruthless, merciless 
men who would as soon crack a man's 
39 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

head as an egg. I would sooner be as I 
am, a lagging sheep, than like one of them. 
Let them butcher away if they will, I 
offer my own throat, if it pleases them ! 

My thoughts keep on reverting to 
Antwerp. It must be like our Petro- 
grad, spacious and beautiful ; its numerous 
waters reflect the flames now, and blood 
flows in the darkness of the night. And 
the sky is ablaze ! God ! what appalling 
things are going on in this world ! 

11th October. 
Antwerp has fallen. 

15th October. 

I don't know whether it is due to the 
bad weather and the darkness, and all 
this muddle, but of late I have been very 
depressed. I take no pleasure in anything 
and have a constant feeling of nausea in 
the pit of the stomach. You start the day 
40 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

each morning with a horrible scramble for 
a tramcar — there seem more people than 
ever, in spite of the war, or fewer cars, 
perhaps — and you come out of the crush 
bruised and shaken as though you'd been 
through some drunken brawl. The per- 
sistent collectors, men and women alike, 
with their flags and flowers, do not increase 
the general pleasantness. Particularly in- 
solent in this respect are the boys and 
girls whose parents would do much better 
to keep them at home, than let them drag 
themselves about the streets. 

I am as prepared as any man to take my 
share of the burden ; it is a pleasure to 
me, in so far as my limited means will 
allow, and I object to this distrust of my 
feelings of duty and compassion, and the 
indecency with which these people search 
your eyes to demand your purse. People 
seem afraid to look each other square in 
41 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

the face as they walk along the streets, 
but in reality every one takes a stealthy 
glance to see if his neighbour has the symbol 
of the day. Even I can't resist doing so. 
It is more than the scrutiny of my purse 
that I mind, it is the scrutiny of my soul 
that I object to. My soul is my own ; 
I am its master. The State can dispose of 
my body, if it wills, in so far as the law 
permits, but no one, not Peter the Great 
himself, has the right of probing into my 
soul and introducing his laws there, no 
matter how excellent they may be. People 
have tampered with my soul too much 
of late, using it as freely as a public road. 
To-day, for instance, I had a wild argu- 
ment with Sasha. I have always con- 
sidered myself a Liberal, and was rather 
proud of the fact. Every intelligent man 
ought to be a Liberal. Nations are all 
alike to me. I make no difference between 
42 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

a German, a Frenchman, or even a Jew. 
For the past two months, however, the 
papers, the fellows in the office, and every 
one, has been trying to impress upon me 
that I ought to hate the Germans. Sasha 
even said to me to-day in the most brutal 
manner, " You must be mean if you can 
love the Germans now ! " 

" How do you know I love them ? " I 
demanded. " With my principles I can't 
hate anyone, no matter who it is." 

She laughed. 

" Principles, indeed ! We should hear a 
different tale if Pavel had been your brother 
and not mine ! I wonder mother can bear 
to come here, seeing how much you love 
her son ? " 

Then with a brutality of which I should 

not have thought her capable, she called me 

a coward and a traitor, and declared that 

I was glad that my age prevented me from 

43 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

going to the war. And this, after all the 
talks we had had when she had seemed to 
agree with me, and after the way she had 
been concerned about my digestion but 
a day or two ago ! A fine soldier I should 
make with my poor digestion and my 
palpitations. 

I didn't say a word the whole evening 
to show my resentment, and won't speak 
for a day or two to come ; but I fear it 
will have but little effect. 

The war is beginning to get on one's 
nerves ; one can't escape it for a day. I 
left off reading the papers, but that proved 
too much for me ; I couldn't keep it up 
for long. The papers are full of sensations, 
and the men in our office are for ever 
disputing and arguing round the maps. 
Horrible ! I would go right away if I 
could afford it. There must be some spot 
in the world where one would be free from 
44 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

the war. Living as one is amidst the 
general folly, it is practically impossible 
to preserve one's own individuality, and 
save one's soul from corruption. I didn't 
want the war, as I said before ! I loathe 
it for all its " significance." Why should 
I be compelled to think and read about its 
horrors every day of my life ? 

I am not a heartless blackguard. I 
have my sympathies and sense of decency 
— I say this in all modesty — and I suffer 
agonies at these unbearable horrors. The 
killing of thousands, nay, hundreds of 
thousands, is bad enough, but the fiendish 
way in which it is done, the deafening noise 
and the fire, surpasses all understanding. 
Before death comes to release a man he 
is driven mad a thousand times by all 
their devilish inventions and surprises ! 
There is not much use in living in Post Office 
Street, far removed from the sight of a 
45 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

gun, when the newspapers, and photo- 
graphs, and information from people spare 
me none of the horrors ! 

What good does my suffering do to 
anyone ? I don't care what people might 
say to this, but if I could bewitch or 
hypnotise myself to get this war out of 
my head, I would do so without the smallest 
hesitation. Since I am not fighting, my 
torments are of no use to any one. I 
don't see why I should lose my sleep and 
thereby get too ill to do my work ! 

How sad it is that Sasha doesn't under- 
stand it ! If she gave the matter a single 
thought she would see that my health was 
essential to the family, and that if I began 
to hate the Germans as she and mother do, 
and went about in fear and trembling 
over Pavel, it would be a poor look-out 
for them all. There she is, sleeping with 
a feeling of injury, while I cannot sleep, 
46 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

and suffer in my forced loneliness. Ah, 
Sasha, Sasha ! Do you think my lot is 
an easy one ? I envy every dog barking 
innocently in its back-yard, for it knows 
nothing of Germans slaughtering Russians 
and Russians Germans ! Gh, for some 
dark garret in which to hide, as when a 
boy I used to hide from my stepfather ! 
" How shall I fly from thy spirit ? " 

I ought to be thankful that from child- 
hood I have never been in the habit of 
dreaming ; sleep does afford me a certain 
forgetfulness and rest, but no sooner do 
I wake than an unbearable irritation takes 
possession of my being and drives me to 
despair. I am beginning to sleep badly, 
too : I lie awake straining to catch some 
sound. Sasha is also uneasy in her sleep ; 
she moans and throws her arms about. 
I feel quite sorry for her. She is only a 
woman, after all. 

47 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

We've had news of Pavel. He tells us 
that he has been moved to some base, 
so that we can be easy about him for some 
time. Mother made me quite angry to-day. 
She doesn't seem to know what a base 
means, and keeps on looking for Pavel's 
name in the casualty lists. It's useless 
to tell her that the lists are old ones. She 
won't believe a word I say. The poor old 
lady must have lost her senses a bit, I 
think. 

This has been a most unpleasant day. 
Zvoliansky, the Pole in our office, enlarged 
on the subject of the Turks entering the 
war. He was stupidly exultant at the 
prospect of Tsar-Grad l and the Straits 
becoming ours ! I couldn't help thinking 
what a fool he was, and how glad he ought 
to be that Petrograd still belonged to us 
without bothering about Tsar-Grad. I got 

The Russian for Constantinople. 

48 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

a picture of some harmless little Turk 
sitting quietly in Constantinople, Ibragim- 
Bey by name, perhaps, or Ilya Petrovitch, 
as we should call him, little dreaming as 
he pats his round belly that to-morrow he 
will make a target for our smart troops. 
I wonder what he would say if he were 
told? 

A small hospital of fifteen beds has been 
opened in our block of flats, to be sup- 
ported by the different residents. I shall 
do my share, of course. 

Ah, Sasha, Sasha, dear ! 

%9th October. 

Turkey has opened hostilities against 
Russia. Dear, dear, how the war is 
spreading ! 

20th October. 

I am at a loss to understand how I came 
to join the demonstration over Turkey, 
d 49 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

with its flags and banners. To think of 
my dragging myself about the streets 
singing and shouting " Hurrah " and mak- 
ing a fool of myself generally! What a 
hero I felt! My heroism has brought on 
a bad cold, I am afraid. I have a stiff 
neck to-day and feel shivery without my 
coat. When I got home I found a large 
company collected there. It consisted of 
Nikolai and his wife and the inevitable 
Kindiakov, a lawyer, Sashenka's friend, 
Fimotchka, a midwife, and a few others, 
making seven in all. 

To celebrate the occasion I got out four 
bottles of wine, presented to me by 
Zvoliansky some time back in August. 
We were more intoxicated by the news 
than the wine. We shouted and argued 
and made sport of Turkey ; we sang 
national anthems, Kindiakov accompany- 
ing on the piano. It was three in the 
50 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

morning when I got to bed, for I had to 
see Fimotchka home first. It is well that 
I have had a snooze to-day, otherwise I 
should have been very irritable. 

This is the first time in my life that I 
have taken part in a national demonstra- 
tion, and I must confess, it was an inter- 
esting experience. I shall never forget it 
as long as I live. This may seem absurd 
to the more experienced, but what 
interested me the most was, that no 
matter where we marched, on pavement 
or road, the traffic stopped to make way 
for us. And then the flags, the spon- 
taniety of our singing, the fact that police 
and soldiers saluted us as we passed, 
gave us a martial air, and made us feel 
as though we, too, were part of the war — 
we were the troops for home defence. 
There were some retired military and naval 
men among us, and one old fellow, an 
51 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

admiral, would insist on us marching in 
time, and when he succeeded in making 
us do so, now and again, our singing 
grew more measured and we felt more 
and more like soldiers on their way 
to the battlefield. With what a sense of 
joy did we sing ! What faith we had in 
the invincibility of our strength, and how 
certain we felt of victory ! I don't know 
whether it was the strangeness of the 
procession, or the fact that the streets 
looked different, but despite my enthusiasm, 
the sense of panic I had felt on the first 
day came over me again. Distant Turkey 
and the war itself seemed to have come 
closer, so close that we could have touched 
them ; we felt their nearness, and the sense 
of security was gone. It seemed as though 
the whole structure of our lives would 
collapse, and we should go down into the 
abysses of hell. The Turks, again, played 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

no part in this fear ; we despised them too 
much, and could even afford to pity them 
for having been duped ; our fear was based 
on some inexplicable cause. Something I 
saw this morning would perhaps illustrate 
my meaning. On the way to the office I 
saw a load of young trees that were meant 
for planting somewhere, no doubt. Their 
delicate roots, with the soil clinging to 
them, were in baskets, but the poor things 
rocked to and fro on the boards. They 
must have felt very forlorn and strange, 
and were wondering where they were 
going. The new soil may be good for 
them in time to come, but until they 
become accustomed to the difference be- 
tween the old soil and the new, they 
must feel very insecure. 

I don't know whether it was my en- 
thusiasm or my fear that made me shout 
" Hurrah," but while I shouted with all 
53 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

my heart in it, I thought, nevertheless, 
" My God, my God, when is it going to 
end ? " I looked at the drizzling sky, 
misty and grey . . . the ways of the 
world are so enigmatical . . . the sky 
was the same as of old, the houses, those 
I had known in my boyhood. Where was 
the difference then, if houses and sky 
and people were the same ? What had 
happened ? I reduced myself to such a 
state in the end as to wonder whether I 
had changed personally, and a strong desire 
came over me to see my own face in the 
glass as I shouted " Hurrah." 

My enthusiasm has gone to-day and my 
fear too. Nothing on earth would make 
me open my mouth to shout or to sing. 
I am rilled with a dull aching despair. 
My God, what is the use of it all ? As a 
good Russian I can't help being pleased 
at the prospect of the Straits and Tsar- 
54 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

Grad becoming ours, but my pleasure is 
not altogether unalloyed. We have got on 
quite well without Tsar- Grad so far, and 
what is to happen to my fat little 
Turk, Ibragim-Bey, who can't escape 
being killed ? I must be sorry for him. 

I don't know why I compare myself to 
that fat little Turk, for I am not fat at all. 
It seems such a pity that he should be 
hurt when he never hurt anyone. His 
blood will rise, of course, for the Turks 
are a fiery race, but why should he be 
roused at all ? Even the gentlest dog 
will turn on his master when teased enough. 
I dislike this war intensely, for all the fine 
talk of the men in our office. 

I was foolish enough to-day to try to 
explain to Lidotchka something about 
the war and Turkey. I even pointed 
Turkey out to her on the map. The little 
thing didn't understand, of course ; she 
55 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

was more interested in the idea that there 
was so much water. She made me leave 
my paper to come and watch her skipping. 
Skip away, my child, skip away, and 
rejoice that you are not a Belgian or 
Polish child, for you would have perished 
in the flames or been killed by a bomb 
dropped from the clouds. 

How horrible to think that even children 
are being slaughtered ! 

%nd November. 

There is an alarming rumour that Warsaw 
has been taken by the Germans. All the 
men in our office are deeply depressed, 
and as for Zvoliansky, the Pole, it makes 
my heart ache to look at him. 

There has been a lot of unpleasantness 

at home, too. Mother has come to live 

with us for good, owing to a fearful scandal 

in Nikolai's family about Nikolai's wife 

56 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

and Kindiakov, the lawyer. Husband and 
wife have separated. Sasha tells me that 
Nikolai tried to shoot Kindiakov, but 
missed aim, fortunately, and the matter 
was hushed up. Mother happened to spend 
that night with us, and was consequently 
spared the disgraceful scene. How people 
can busy themselves with love and jealousy 
at a time like the present is more than 
I can understand. A most disgraceful 
business ! Nikolai has departed for the 
Caucasus, his wife has gone off with 
Kindiakov, and we hear that she wants 
to go on the stage, or something. 

We've had no news of Pavel for three 
weeks, so one can easily imagine the family's 
mood. Three weeks is not a long time, 
when one takes into consideration the slow- 
ness and uncertainty of the army posts, 
but mother refuses to consider these things, 
and depresses us all by her terrible anxiety. 
57 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

Added to her other misfortunes, the poor 
old lady is ill at ease and rather afraid of 
me. The thought of her dependence on 
us is wounding to her pride. She seems 
to think she has no right to live with us. 
When I try to reassure her on Pavel's 
account by pointing out the uncertainty 
of the posts, she is over eager to agree 
with me, yet looking so scared, as though, 
in some subtle way, I had asked her to 
leave the house. I rebuked her on one 
occasion, unable to contain myself. " You 
really ought to be ashamed to think of 
me as you do, Mother ; you put me in a 
very awkward position. I am only think- 
ing of your good, and you look upon me 
as no better than a German straight from 
Berlin." This only made her more nervous 
than ever. How ridiculous it is ! When 
I am absent she does nothing but cry, I 
am told, but when I am at home, she tries 
58 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

to appear cheerful, and by the way she 
confuses her words when she is making 
some joke, one can see what she is really 
feeling. She has just brought me some 
coffee, for example, and forgotten the sugar. 
I hate the old lady's having to wait on me ; 
she can hardly keep up as it is ! 

The thing, however, that causes me 
the greatest anxiety, is my dear Sashenka. 
I don't know what to do with her. This 
is a subject one can only speak of in a 
diary. I have mentioned before, I think, 
that a small hospital has been opened in 
our block of flats, to be supported by the 
various inhabitants. It is not the money 
I grudge, though there is little enough of 
it, God knows, but with the arrival of 
the first batch of wounded, Sashenka can't 
be got away from the place, in her womanly 
kindness ; she is there day and night. 
She is a staff nurse now, or a probationer, 
59 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

perhaps, since she has not been through 
the training, but I think it must be a 
nurse, though. 

It seems that one could raise little 
objection to such a truly Christian spirit. 
All our friends admire Sashenka for what 
she is doing, the soldiers adore her, and 
she herself finds satisfaction in her work. 
What objections could there be to raise 
in such a splendid arrangement ? I can 
do nothing but keep them to myself, 
for no matter how right I might be, no 
one would give me the credit of it. I 
should only be censured by people and 
annoyed by their distrust. I should gain 
the reputation of being a hopeless egoist, 
and a tyrant, who wouldn't allow his wife 
to work in a hospital. It is certainly 
difficult for a man to prove his case when 
people find it to their advantage that a 
woman should neglect her family to work 
60 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

for others and help mend the damage 
that they have caused. 

My conscience, however, compels me 
to say that Sashenka's devotion to the 
hospital is selfish and wicked to the extreme. 
It isn't right to give yourself up entirely to 
charity at the expense of your own home ! 
There is not much virtue in a compassion 
that devotes itself to some people and 
neglect others equally as helpless. 

Some things a man doesn't like to 
mention even in a diary. I am unlucky 
enough to have a bad digestion. It is 
only by the most careful diet that I can 
keep well enough to support my family, 
and Annisia, our cook, gives me such 
horrible food as to make me quite ill. 
The digestion of an Ilya Petrovitch is a 
small matter in face of the horrors of the 
war, the suffering of the wounded, the 
destitute and fatherless ; it's hardly decent 
61 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

to mention it. Doctors, I know, look with 
contempt on such complaints nowadays, 
yet Ilya Petrovitch is just as much a human 
being as the rest ; he has worked honestly 
all his life to keep his wife and little ones, 
and I maintain that his digestion has every 
claim to attention and care. 

I might manage with my scorned diges- 
tion somehow or other by starving my- 
self a little, but what can I do with the 
children ? We have three little ones, of 
whom Lidotchka, the eldest, is only six and 
a half. (I married late in life.) Our nurse, 
who acts as housemaid as well, is a most 
ignorant creature, and is able in good faith 
to poison or kill a child. She allowed 
Peter to get his feet wet the other day, 
and the poor boy had to stay in bed for 
some time with a high temperature. The 
youngest child, Jena, too, is not very 
well ; he has lost all appetite and grown 
62 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

pale and thin. I haven't the remotest 
idea how to look after children. When 
I point out their pitiable condition to 
Sashenka, she tells me to get mother to 
look after them. As if mother could ! 
She has no more resistance than a feather, 
and can think of nothing, awake or 
sleeping, but her Pavel in the trenches. 
Of course, she could have done it at one 
time, I admit, but not now ; she is too 
weak. It's not fair to put so much 
responsibility on the old lady's shoulders. 
Her efforts are pitiful to see. I don't 
know whether it was she who started a 
game with the children the other day, 
or whether they began it, but they knocked 
her down (not meaning any harm, of 
course) and nearly suffocated her like a 
kitten. When I dragged her out she 
burst into tears. I, too, was upset at sight 
of her trembling head and ruffled hair. 
63 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

Dear, dear ! Sashenka is behaving very, 
very badly ! We are not responsible that 
there is a war. The war has no right 
to thrust itself among us like a brigand, 
and lay waste our home. We bear enough 
trials and sacrifices we have done nothing 
to deserve. There is no need for us to 
throw ourselves down for the war to walk 
over us as the Hindoos throw themselves 
beneath the chariot wheels of their evil 
god Juggernaut. I refuse to accept evil 
gods, I refuse to accept the war for all its 
" significance." I fail to see the good of it 
around me, least of all in my own home ! 

Or must I see good in the fact that 
the face of my darling Lidotchka is begin- 
ning to show signs of sadness ? The poor 
little thing is already trying to exert her 
little mind in attempts to cheer me when 
she sees me dull and depressed. Her little 
hands, too, are trying to be useful by help- 
64 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

ing to wash up the glasses and to nurse 
Jena. She herself is badly in need of a 
nurse. 

The cost of living is rising in the most 
appalling manner. The luxury of a cab 
or a theatre is not to be thought of. Even 
a tram fare needs consideration nowa- 
days ; one's legs have to serve one in 
good stead. I am glad of the extra work 
from the office in real earnest now, and 
thankful that there is still such work 
to take home. We were compelled to 
give up the piano. And the cursed war 
is only at its beginning ; it is only getting 
into the way of it, so to speak. What 
horrible deeds men are perpetrating over 
there ! To leave the lower orders out of 
the question, men of the higher professions, 
such as scholars, professors, lawyers, are 
devouring each other like wild beasts ; 
they have grown so fiendish as to lose 
e 65 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

every spark of human feeling. What is 
science and religion worth after that ? 
There was a time when you could rely 
upon a professor as on a stone wall; you 
might feel sure that he would not betray 
nor hurt, nor kill, because he knew and 
understood things, now he is just as 
vicious as the rest, and there is no one 
left to rely on. 

I protest against the popular assertion 
that we are all (myself included) responsible 
for the war. It's too absurd for argu- 
ment. I know that some people think 
that with my ideas I ought to march 
continually about the streets, neither eating 
nor drinking, shouting " Stop the war," 
and snatching rifles from the hands of the 
soldiers. But I wonder who would listen to 
me, except the policeman, or where I should 
find myself, if I carried out their wishes, 
if not in prison or in a lunatic asylum ? 
66 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

I deny all responsibility for the war, and 

my suffering is needless and senseless. 
• • • • • 

I have a small piece of news. Andrei 
Vasilevitch, the man who is to read my 
diary, has been decorated with two St 
George Crosses. Being a friend of Sas- 
henka's she is very proud and pleased, 
but I wonder if Andrei Vasilevitch himself 
is proud and pleased ? 



15th November. 

I must relieve my mind about this, 
come what may. No matter how many 
cigarettes I buy nowadays, I never seem 
to have any. No one besides myself 
smokes at home, so Sasha takes them 
to her wounded, no doubt. I can't lock 
up my drawers from her, can I ? At 
the merest hint to-day, she retorted, " You 
67 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

can go without smoking yourself, but I 
will take cigarettes to the wounded ! " 
And she looked at me in such an uncanny 
way. It was not love, but hate I saw 
reflected in those dear eyes of hers. I 
grew cold all over, and a feeling of despair 
settled on my heart. I might have been 
sitting in the trenches on a damp day 
and some confounded German aiming at 
me. I shall buy two thousand cigarettes 
to-morrow and put them in every visible 
place to show her that I'm not mean. She 
ought to have understood that it was not 
a question of meanness. Ah, Sashenka, 
Sashenka ! 



19th November. 

I often visit our hospital. It is now 
being supported by the town, and occupies 
two stories in our building. I suffer 
68 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

needless torments by the sight of the 
wounded — men who have lost an arm or 
a leg, or their sight. The effect produced 
after a couple of hours in their presence 
is indescribable. You feel perfectly un- 
strung, particularly after the arrival of a 
batch of " fresh ones," as the nurses 
call them. I can't help going, or people 
would think me a brute, so I suffer and 
conform to public opinion. 

A certain reservist, no longer a young 
man, made a great impression on me. 
He told me that when he first went out 
to the front, he resolved not to take life, 
and to be on the safe side, in a bayonet 
attack on a German trench he threw away 
his rifle as they charged forward — a most 
excellent thing to do it seemed— but when, 
together with his fellows, he stepped over 
the fatal barrier, such a feeling of fury 
came over him, that he dug his teeth 
69 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

into some German's throat. Now he rages 
at night, and digs his teeth into his pillow 
as if it were a German's throat, and there 
he lies tearing and screaming. 

Great God, supposing such a thing were 
to have happened to me ! I was nearly 
brought to the condition of digging my 
teeth into some one the other night, 
when I lay awake thinking of the war 
and the Germans who had started it ; 
I grew so terrified at the possibilities 
in me, at Sashenka's empty bed (Sashenka 
is on night duty at the hospital), at 
mother's ghostly face, at the futile destruc- 
tion, that I dressed hastily and went in 
to Sashenka. (The hospital being in our 
own building made it an easy thing to 
do.) Sashenka was not surprised at this 
nocturnal visit ; she just asked me to 
be quiet, and brought me a cup of tea 
from somewhere, and smiled. There was 
70 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

a gentle moaning ; the lamps were low, 
and feeble voices called " Nurse ! Nurse ! " 
Sashenka led me over to the man who 
bites and tears an imaginary German. 
The poor man, his head completely- 
bandaged, was squeezing his blanket with 
both hands, " Strangling some one," 
Sashenka said. She gave him a drink 
of water, and he seemed to grow quiet 
after that, and lay with his hands folded 
as innocently as a child. 

I remained in the hospital until day- 
break, but I could not go to sleep for a 
long time when I got home. I wept 
aloud from sheer pity. The thought of 
the man's bandaged head and pale hands 
depressed me deeply. 

I wonder if Sashenka was right, after 

all ? Was it meanness that made me 

regret the cigarettes ? My God ! I could 

have gone down on my knees before that 

71 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

wounded man, and for the pleasure of 
having him ask me for a cigarette, I could 
have torn out my own heart ! How short 
a man's memory is ! 



11th December. 

By the same post we received four 
letters from Pavel. He is alive and well, 
and in Prussia once more. Needless to 
say, both mother and Sashenka and I 
were beside ourselves with joy. How 
absurd it seems ! Pavel might have been 
killed a hundred times since his last letter, 
and yet there we were rejoicing over a 
piece of crumpled paper and a few faint 
pencil strokes as though Pavel himself 
stood before us. Among other things, 
this is what he writes, " What else can 
I tell you, my dear Sashenka ? Every- 
thing here is so interesting. You look 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

at the moving mass of men in the snow 
and twilight, and think. . . . Snow . . . 
fields . . . Germany . . . great events 
... a great war . . . and this is the 
war, and I am part of it. An officer 
comes back from the firing lines, soaking 
wet, his coat and hood covered with 
snow. He takes off his coat and tries to 
warm himself with a cup of tea, and you 
think again, ' This then is the great war, 
and this is the great Russian army ! ' 
In the most trifling little act you see 
something of the passing greatness. The 
military operations on our front have 
been slow. The cold and the snow seems 
to have made everything heavy to move, 
especially the men. There is not much 
life in us, wrapped up as we are, and the 
hardest time is yet to come ! I am having 
tea in the officers' mess just now, in 
a real glass with a stand. I am writing 
73 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

this letter, but the telephone may ring 
at any moment, and everything will change 
as in a dream. Our battery may have to 
be moved half a mile to right or left or 
forward, and then will come digging in 
the hard, cold soil to have a dug-out ready 
by night-fall (it is horribly cold in the 
trenches now), in which we will lie 
down to sleep, damp and hungry. This 
is not fiction, but naked fact. Do you 
know what blood on snow looks like, 
Sashenka ? Like a red water-melon. 
Isn't it funny ? " 

In another letter he tells how the men 
covered themselves with wet straw one 
night in a thaw, and had to force their 
way out of it, so hard had it frozen by 
morning. Poor Pavel ! and we rejoiced 
over his letter ! 



74 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

31 st December. 

A blizzard has been blowing all day, 
drifting the snow into every street. 
Mountains of it have fallen. Walls and 
cornices and windows are covered with 
snow. There might not have been a town 
at all ; the houses seemed to be standing 
in absurd array in the midst of snowy 
fields. I happened to pass the Isaac 
Cathedral. The snow had drifted on to 
pillars and steps. The pillars were so 
cold that it made one shudder to look 
at them. Men and women, muffled up, 
fought their way against the wind ; only 
those who were compelled to, ventured 
out of doors, the rest kept within. I 
began to wonder suddenly what it would 
be like to have no home to go back to, 
and to be forced to remain in the streets 
in weather like this. It would be enough 
75 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

to drive one mad. What is it like in 
the trenches now ? 

I have no time for my diary nowadays. 
I bring home so much work from the office 
as to leave me hardly any breathing 
space. And my health, I am sorry to 
say, is anything but good ; I am always 
tired and sleepy and cold — so cold that I 
find it hard to keep warm in bed with my 
two heavy blankets. Our house is a warm 
one, fortunately. 

It is nearly Christmas, and still there 
is no end to the war. In the squares, 
where in former years Christmas-trees used 
to be sold, soldiers are drilling. They 
help to make things jolly, though. You 
can't help being drawn to them. I saw 
a curious sight in the Palace Square the 
other day, which amused me very much 
at a first glance. About fifty men were 
drilling there, and seen from the distance, 
76 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

they looked as though the sun were shining 
full on them. The effect was strange, 
for it was a dull day and the sun had not 
been out at all. I laughed when I came 
closer. Every man of them had a red 
beard, which gave the effect of sunlight. 
My silly laughter died away, however, 
when I came closer still, for though the 
beards were red, the faces were old and 
pale and drawn ; there was no light 
in the eyes ; dull despair was expressed 
in them. They were reservists, men who 
had families, no doubt. I learnt after- 
wards that men with red beards were 
chosen for some special regiment. 

I am trying to earn as much as I 
possibly can to be able to take Sasha and 
the children to Finland for a few days at 
Christmas, if only to get away from the 
newspapers for a bit. It would do Sasha 
good to get a rest from the hospital, and 
77 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

I, too, am tired. The rooms seem so 
gloomy, as though we were going blind. 
We can hardly distinguish each other's 
pale faces in the gloom. I am very, very 
tired. 

Monday, Wh January. 
Pavel has been killed. God help us ! 



Night. 

Pavel, my poor dear ! I never made 
enough of you, not knowing you would 
die so soon, and now you are no more, 
and my bitter tears cannot help you ! 
If I could only gaze once more into your 
dear, grey eyes, hear your hesitating laugh, 
see your funny little moustache we used 
to chaff you about so much ! But now 
you are dead. Dead ! I can't think that 
it's true ! 

78 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

My boy, my friend, my defender, my 
words cannot reach you in the cold earth ! 
If I could only put my arms about you, 
my poor, lonely boy, and let the warmth 
of my body pass into yours ! And you 
will never, never know how the war is 
going to end, and you used to be so keen 
about it ! . . . Pavel, Pavel ! . . . 



79 



PART II 

18th January. 

It was Petrov, a volunteer and friend of 
Pavel's, who informed me about his death. 
To spare his mother and Sashenka a 
sudden shock, Pavel must have arranged 
with his friend to write to my office address 
in case of need, so that I should be the one 
to break the terrible news to his nearest 
and dearest. I shall never forget the 
awful moment when I tore open the 
envelope marked " On active service," 
and addressed in an unfamiliar hand, a 
fact which in itself foreboded evil, and 
read the few lines it contained. . . . The 
men in our office were very sympathetic, 
but what did their sympathy matter to 
f 81 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

me ? I went home at once, wondering, 
in agony, how I was to break the news 
to mother and Sashenka. When I reached 
Sashenka's hospital I turned away again, 
not daring to go in, and for a couple 
of hours I paced the streets ; I even 
wandered aimlessly into the Philipov Cafe. 
I can't remember whether it had been 
snowing hard that day, but everything 
seemed deadly white. People and tram- 
cars seemed weird and strange ; the sound 
of a car bell vibrated painfully through 
the brain ; it seemed as though human 
beings were drowned in silence, and only 
the car bells rang and rang like mad. 
I could not cry at the time ; my tears 
were dried by the thought of Sashenka 
and mother. 

Why need I describe a condition that 
must be so plain to every one ? I must 
say this, however, I would sooner die a 
82 



DURING CxREAT DAYS 

thousand deaths than have to tell any 
woman that her son has been killed. 
Rather than go through the experience 
a second time, to gaze into trusting, 
innocent eyes, I would sooner lay hands 
on myself. Grieved as I am over Pavel's 
death, I can't help rejoicing that the ordeal 
is behind me and will never have to be 
repeated again. Death would be easier. 

I need hardly say that we did not 
go to Finland. Sashenka deserted the 
hospital during those sad days, and, 
hiding her own grief, she did all she could 
to console mother. The old lady is neither 
dead nor alive. I find it hard to under- 
stand her condition. For hours at a time 
she will cry in some corner, or, with 
Sashenka, she will go to church to have 
a Mass said for the dead, or she will wander 
aimlessly about the rooms, and begin to 
dust some place where not a speck of dust 
83 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

is to be seen. She brings me my coffee 
without any sugar, as usual. Yesterday 
she disappeared. After an hour and a half 
had gone by we grew anxious and made 
a search. We found her locked in the 
lavatory. She couldn't open the door, and 
wouldn't give a sign of life, even though 
she must have heard us calling her. It 
was only after we had banged and banged 
at the door that she made a feeble sound. 
The numbers and numbers of times we 
had shown her how to lock and unlock 
that door, and still she couldn't do it. 
In the end I had to fetch a locksmith to 
get her out. 

When Sashenka reproved her for not 
answering when she was called the old 
lady burst into tears. She is more sensi- 
tive than ever. Now nurse or Lidotchka 
have to take her to the lavatory ; it 
isn't safe to let her go alone. 
84 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

What an awful Christmas this is, to 
be sure ! The days are more or less 
bearable, but when I go to bed at night 
I lie in dread of hearing either Sashenka 
begin to sob in her bed, or mother in the 
adjoining room. They may lie quiet until 
daybreak sometimes, and then a bed 
will begin to shake with sobbing, and 
so it goes on and on. . . . 

The last time we saw Pavel was on the 
fourth of August when we were in the 
country. Mother happened to be staying 
with us at the time, too. His regiment 
was on its way south to the front from some 
remote part of Finland, and having to 
wait about an hour and a half for a change 
of trains, he rushed over to see us. It 
was getting dark when he came, and his 
visit was so unexpected that we com- 
pletely lost our heads at sight of him. 
He had on his heavy field kit with a kettle 
85 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

and bag slung over his shoulder, and was 
grimy and dusty. He had an unfamiliar 
smell about him, and looked so strange in 
his uniform with his closely-cropped hair 
that was just beginning to grow a little. 
He had been digging and felling timber, 
and looked more like a peasant than a 
soldier. " Wish me luck," he managed 
to whisper, " we are going to Warsaw." 

We couldn't talk properly, and said the 
silliest things that came into our heads. 
We were so anxious to make him eat, 
and he was as hungry as only a soldier 
can be. We sat out on the verandah, 
I remember. We examined his rifle in 
turn ; it looked pretty and straight ; I 
can't remember the number of it, though 
he told us. I can't remember even the 
expression of his face. I know only that 
there was something peculiar about it. 
I wanted to lead him from room to room. 
86 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

I wanted to say, " Bid good-bye to every- 
thing, Pavel, for you may never return, 
and may never see it again." 

He, too, had the same thought, no doubt, 
but neither of us dared to give expression 
to it, and we sat on the verandah like 
strangers, and made no attempt to go 
into the house at all. When he was forced 
to leave us, we accompanied him to the 
station, which was quite close, and we 
gave him a hasty, affectionate kiss and 
watched him clamber into the goods- 
waggon filled with his jolly, laughing 
comrades. Soon the long train started, 
the soldiers shouted " Hurrah " and then 
it was over, and all was still. I can still 
see that receding red lamp at the back 
of the train. I remember, too, how quiet 
and dead the house seemed when we 
got back to it. 

And now Pavel is dead, and we do not 
87 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

even know where he is buried. I cannot 
picture the place, no matter how hard 
I try. I am dazed ; I don't understand 
what is happening ; I don't understand 
the war. I feel only that it crushes us, 
and there is no salvation for any of us, 
big or small. My thoughts are all broken ; 
my soul seems like a strange house where 
I cannot find a comfortable spot to rest 
in. What was I like before the war ? 
I don't remember. 

A huge pair of hands seem to hold me 
in their grasp, moulding me into some 
fantastic shape, hands that are too strong 
for resistance. 

30th January. 

What a scare we've had to-day ! Mother 

disappeared from the house. She went 

out early in the morning and was not 

back by the evening. I was at the office 

88 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

as usual, and Sashenka was at the hospital. 
Our fool of a nurse couldn't tell us 
anything, as she never noticed when 
the old lady first went out, and hadn't 
the sense to let either of us know when 
she missed her. I was naturally alarmed ; 
absent-minded as mother is, she might 
have been run over by a tram or a 
motor. 

I fetched Sashenka and we began to 
hunt for her. I telephoned to every one 
of our friends, and to nearly all the 
police stations when she herself appeared 
on the scene. It turned out that she 
had been to see an old friend, who lived 
at the end of Vasily Island, and had 
stayed there until the evening. The idea 
of disappearing like that without a word ! 

When Sashenka reproved her she was 
hurt, and burst into tears, and we had 
the greatest difficulty in soothing her 
89 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

afterwards. The old lady has grown more 
sensitive than ever. We shall have to 
keep a strict eye on her. 

2nd February. 

The Germans have now taken to sinking 
ships. What can one do but shrug one's 
shoulders at such mad goings-on ? They 
have passed human understanding. The 
very nature of a submarine must be 
vicious that it must be for ever destroying. 
Or is it the closeness and darkness that 
stupefies and poisons the men in them 
and makes them bestial ? The fellows 
in our office were disgusted and indignant. 
I only shrugged my shoulders in perplexity. 
My face must have been as stupid as 
that of a German who sinks ships. What 
could I say ? 



90 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

27th February. 

I caught a chill, and have been at home 
with a bad attack of influenza all the week. 
I might have enjoyed a good rest in spite 
of my indisposition had I not devoured 
so many papers, nor thought so much 
about the horrors of the times. The 
things they write, the things that go on, 
are simply unbearable ! One fellow made 
me furious ! And he is considered, by 
some mistaken idea, as one of our leading 
writers. To my mind his pernicious 
article is nothing short of criminal, for 
all that the men in our office are so 
enthusiastic about it. The man assures 
us in the most flowering terms, distorting 
every fact, that the war will bring every 
possible kind of good to humanity all 
over the world — future humanity, that is. 
At present, he says, we must sacrifice 
91 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

ourselves for the good of posterity. The 
war is like a disease that destroys separate 
cells in the body, at the same time re- 
generating the whole organism. And the 
" cells " must be consoled by this idea ' 
Who are these " cells," I should like to 
ask ? I suppose he means me, mother, 
our poor dead Pavel, the millions of killed 
and wounded, and the rest who will soon 
lie buried in the cold earth ! An excellent 
idea ! 

It seems that we " cells " must not 
only refrain from protesting, rebelling, 
but we must not even feel pain ; we must 
submerge ourselves with the most wild 
rejoicing, for the general good, exulting 
that we have been of some use ! But 
what if we don't want to exult ! We 
are held responsible just the same. The 
war will take five, ten millions of us, if 
it deems necessary, and then will come 
92 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

the process of healing and happiness. 
According to the worthy writer's words, 
the broken remnants of humanity will 
suddenly repent of their sins, understand 
certain wonderful truths, and begin to 
love each other — they will turn into angels, 
in fact. I should like to take the man 
who preaches this gospel and have him 
well flogged while there are still rods in 
the world with which to do it, and we 
haven't grown wings ! It would be 
awkward to flog an angel ! 

From now onwards I am no longer 
Ilya Petrovitch Dementev, but a " cell," 
with no right even to think for myself 
for fear of upsetting the whole show ! 
No, sir, I am not a " cell " but Ilya 
Petrovitch Dementev, as I always was — 
a man with all a man's rights ! You may 
ask me as much as you like to die exulting, 
but I refuse to die dancing ! If it should 
93 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

so happen that you drive me to my grave 
or to the lunatic asylum, I will die in 
hatred, cursing those who murdered me. 
I am not a " cell," and I refuse to become 
an angel after your pattern ! I would 
much rather be Ilya Petrovitch, the sinner 
that I am, answerable to God alone for 
my sins ! 

I refuse to perish for the good of pos- 
terity ! I haven't the smallest desire to 
do so ! Where is the sense in it all, if 
the man of yesterday suffered for me, 
and I must suffer for the man of to-morrow, 
and the man of to-morrow must suffer 
for the man of the day after to-morrow ? 
We have had enough of such frauds and 
deceptions ! I want to live and enjoy 
the good things of life, and not convert 
myself into manure for the nurture of 
some delicate person of the future with 
tender white hands ! I detest that future 
94 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

person and the glories that are to be 
his! 

A " cell " indeed ! Pavel, I suppose, 
must find consolation in the thought in 
his unknown grave in some Prussian 
cabbage-field, and mother must dry up 
her tears and paint her cheeks. It was 
not her son who was killed, but a " cell " 
to whom nothing better could have 
happened ! How wicked and presump- 
tious a man must be to compare a human 
being — sacred as he is — to a " cell." The 
blackguard ! Instead of dancing on my 
grave if I should die, he ought to shed 
tears for me. He ought to shed tears 
for every man who dies, for once dead, 
no one returns ! For all that he is 
a great writer and I an insignificant 
little man of whom the world has never 
heard, he should scatter flowers on my 
grave, mourn for me with all the tears 
95 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

he can command, and pity me with all 
the pity in his heart ! This comes of 
speaking of men in numbers like so much 
grain ! The very look of a figure takes 
all the sense out of one. Millions, indeed ! 
Man is not so much seed to be measured ! 
Anyone who can speak of a human being 
in other than the dignified term of man, 
and can look upon him as no more than a 
figure in a number, is a servant of Satan. 
He deceives himself and others. When 
a man begins to count other men, he loses 
all values and every sense of pity. Here 
is an example of my meaning in a few 
words taken out of my paper, reporting 
some engagement. " Our losses were in- 
significant ; only two killed and five 
wounded." 

Who considers these losses insignificant, 
I wonder ? Is it the killed ? I should 
like to hear what they had to say on the 
96 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

subject, if they could rise from their 
graves ! Would they consider the losses 
insignificant when they recalled their child- 
hood, their kith and kin, the women they 
had loved, their emotions and terror as 
they marched along, and how all was 
cut short by the horror of death. . . . 
Insignificant losses, indeed ! The black- 
guard ought to be made to realise whom 
it is that he serves with his clever arith- 
metic to keep him from his lying state- 
ments regarding the welfare of the human 
race about which he is so ignorant. 

Condfound the beggar, how furious he's 
made me ! 

The children are well. Lidotchka 
has lost two milk teeth, making her face 
look sweeter than ever. It's nice to have 
a clever child. During my illness she 
read me fairy tales, spelling out each word. 

g 97 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

lift March. 

Fimotchka has just made an interesting 
discovery. Just before the war, she says, 
red was very much in fashion. Women 
wore red dresses, and hats and ribbons 
and all the other little requisites peculiar 
to the sex. As far as I can remember, 
this seems to be true. I wonder if it was 
not some presentiment of the bloodshed 
that was to come ? How blind the people 
were to have considered it an attractive 
colour ! No one wears red now ; as 
a colour it seems to have disappeared, 
washed out by wind and rain. In what 
darkness must man grope, when the 
choice of his garments is not left to his 
free will ! 

I am tired, and not drawn to my diary. 
I have so much to do and so little time. 
The confounded war simply eats up the 
98 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

money. No matter how hard you work, 
you cannot earn enough. 

I don't know whether I've grown in- 
different to the wholesale murder going 
on, or that I take a saner view of things, 
but I can read about twenty thousand 
killed and calmly light a cigarette. I 
no longer devour the papers too, as in the 
early days, when I was always rushing 
round the corner for the new editions, 
in all weathers. It doesn't do any 
good. 

Sashenka is at the hospital as usual, and 
the house just as disorderly as before, 
but I've got used to that too, and hardly 
notice what food I eat. Mother is like 
a shadow in the house ; you would hardly 
know she was there. To drive away my 
depression, I have taken to teaching 
Lidotchka, and to read fairy tales to her. 
She is a dear child ! In our gloomiest 
99 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

moments she lights up our house like a 
sacred lamp. 

I have another confession to make which 
will not meet with the approval of the 
serious -minded. I have no need of their 
approval, thank God. Fimotchka called 
one day when Sashenka was out, and 
seeing how depressed I was, taught me 
to play Patience. It's a silly game for a 
grown man to play, but if you happen to 
be in the condition when you can neither 
take in what you read nor what's being 
said to you, it's very comforting, and gets 
so interesting sometimes that you forget 
about your sleep. I tried to teach Mother 
the game, but she either couldn't or 
wouldn't understand ; she seemed to look 
upon it as an attempt on my part to 
interfere with her legitimate grief. 

I came across a curious saying in the 
calendar : "If you don't learn to play 
100 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

cards in your youth, you are storing up 
a sad old age." 

It's not a question of playing cards. 
One would jump at anything at a time 
like this. 

I'm tired. 

18th March. 

I got a letter from Andrei Vasilevitch. 
After expressing his sympathy over Pavel's 
death (he was very fond of Pavel) he asks 
me to excuse him for writing so seldom, 
on the plea of being busy and tired. In 
answer to certain questions of mine, he 
gives me this unexpected piece of advice, 
" Learn from the Germans." Here is an 
extract from his extraordinary letter : "I 
don't like the Germans, but I think we 
would do well to learn from them, especi- 
ally those of you in the rear. Mark how 
the Germans build up the walls of their 
state, and how wise they are in their 
101 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

self-abnegation. Knowing that you can't 
build a good, steady wall from all sorts of 
irregularly- shaped materials, every German 
voluntarily rubs off his corners and pro- 
jecting parts to make himself into an 
even brick. From these bricks alone you 
get a good wall, and when the mortar 
is added you get the soundest of walls, 
not, as with us, a ram- shackle affair, full 
of holes. Don't be afraid, but learn from 
the Germans, Ilya Petrovitch ! " 

Excellent ! A moment ago I was a 
" cell " and now I am to turn myself 
into a brick. And the fact that I am a 
man I am persistently asked to forget. 
Ilya Petrovitch is in future to be called 
brick number so and so. 

For the sake of argument I consent to 

be a brick, but who is to be the architect 

and the unscrupulous contractor ? Must 

I submit if the architect builds a brothel 

102 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

instead of a temple or a palace ? No, 
Andrei Vasilevitch, I am not a " cell " 
nor a "brick," but Ilya Petrovitch, the 
same as I always was and mean to remain 
to the end of my days. There are many 
" bricks " and " cells " in the world of one 
and the same pattern, but I am the one 
and only Ilya Petrovitch, and there never 
will be another man like me. With every 
ounce of strength I possess I will hold 
myself apart and not submit to the war. 
I refuse to have my wings clipped and will 
not be badgered by your noisy drum ! 

I regret to have been foolish enough 
to take my difficulties to a man so wrapped 
up in the war. He no doubt despises us 
heroes of the rear. 

%3rd March. 

Hurrah ! our troops have captured 
Przemysl ! Petrograd is rejoicing. What 
a gloriously happy day ! 
103 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

The news was telephoned to our office 
by one of the newspapers, and when I 
heard it, such a tremendous feeling of 
joy came over me, that I snatched up 
my things and hastened out into the 
street. Our Nevsky had never looked 
so festive and beautiful before. The snow 
fell fast in large flakes and settled on the 
shoulders of the crowd, but beneath this 
covering of white, flushed cheeks could be 
seen and sparkling eyes. For once the 
citizens of Petrograd had good complexions. 
Immediately the crowd began to organise 
itself. The National Anthem was struck 
up, and a procession started to the palace, 
I could not take part in that, unfortunately, 
for I had to return to the office. 

What a day of joy this has been ! At 

last I begin to realise why the preceding 

days and months had been so gloomy 

and hard to bear. We had got so resigned 

104 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

to our hopelessness, that we had come to 
regard it as a natural condition. It seems 
strange to look back, to think even of 
yesterday. What long heavy days and 
nights those were ! One did not seem to 
live by day, nor to rest by night. And 
when I think of my confused thoughts, 
my silly Patience playing, Mother, our 
dirty, untidy house, the despair, the fear 
of what to-morrow would bring. 

I don't know how it is, but for the first 
time during the war I have realised the 
meaning of the word " Victory." It is 
no little thing, it raises a man to heights 
undreamed of. What a simple word it 
is ! and how many are the times one 
has heard it spoken ! Victory, victory ! 
now I know how wonderful it is. I could 
rush from room to room shouting it ! 

I am still excited — with a pleasant 
excitement, strange to say. When I think 
105 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

that I am a Russian, that there's a country 
in the world called Russia, the hot tears 
come into my eyes. The sight of a soldier's 
grey uniform in the street fills me with 
emotion. I smile and wink at the man 
and make a fool of myself generally. The 
word Russia stirs my very being. How 
sweet and agitating it is, for all that it 
brings the tears to one's eyes ! 

Visions of rye-fields keep floating before 
my eyes, and when I shut them, I see 
wheels going round and round as plainly 
as on a kinematograph film. I hear larks 
singing too. I love larks ; they always 
sing in the sky, not on the ground or in 
trees. Other birds must perch themselves 
comfortably on a tree, smooth down their 
feathers before they begin to sing, and 
then they sing in chorus, but a lark sings 
alone as it soars in the sky. Dear, dear, 
how I have wandered off ! But what does 
106 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

it matter, so long as I keep on about 
something ? 

Another curious thing has happened 
to-day. For the first time since Pavel's 
death Sashenka and I have been able 
to talk about him, and we talked for quite 
a long time, too. Our new victory seemed 
to touch Pavel also, and he had come 
to take his eternal place at our fireside 
in invisible form. Sashenka, of course, 
shed a few tears, but they were not like 
those terrible, solitary tears that used to 
shake her bed at nights. We decided to 
go to church together on the morrow 
to have a mass said for our dead. Usually 
I don't like this ritual, but now it seemed 
not only proper, but a pleasant thing 
to do. 

There is another gratifying event to 
relate. I was able to give Sashenka my 
views, very gently expressed, of course, 
107 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

about her continual absence from home, 
and to my surprise, she did not flare up, 
as I had expected her to do, but promised 
not to be at the hospital so much, and to 
devote herself more to the children in 
future. She even complained of feeling 
tired. The poor thing certainly looks 
tired ; I have only just noticed how thin 
and pale she has grown. I am quite 
anxious about her. However, Sashenka 
looks, if anything, more beautiful than 
ever. What a blessing beauty must be 
in the work she is doing ! When a dying 
soldier gazes up at the beautiful face of 
the nurse bending over him, she must be 
to him a symbol of love and beauty on 
earth, and he must carry her image 
away with him as an eternal dream. There 
must be many dying soldiers who would 
have cursed the world that destroyed 
them, but for the sight of the nurse's 
108 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

beautiful eyes that made him forgive and 
forget. 

For the first time I do not resent 
Sashenka's being at the hospital and 
leaving me alone. There is something 
to occupy my mind now. I keep on 
thinking of victory. What a sense of 
gladness it gives ! How many times have 
I seen the word in novels and histories, 
and of late, in the papers, yet only now 
have I realised what an alluring beast it 
is ! Men have hunted it since the creation 
of the world ; all have desired it ; all 
desire it now, and the wonder of it is 
ours ! Victory, victory ! I could rush 
out into the streets and proclaim it with 
brass trumpets. Victory ! victory ! 



Mth March. 
Lidotchka is ill. God help us. * 
109 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

21th March. 
She is dead. 

%3rd March. 

It is three months since I have touched 
this diary ; I had forgotten about its 
very existence. When I took it out to-day, 
I sat for some time staring blankly at the 
last page containing the words, " She is 
dead." 

" She is dead," only three words on a 
sheet of ordinary white paper. 

God, how wretched man is ! How well 
I remember the day I wrote the words ! 
If instead of the white paper with the 
few scrawls there had been a mirror to 
reflect eternally the face of the man who 
wrote them with all its anguish and despair ! 
What do these words convey ? 

What a friend this diary is to me ! Its 
pages contain the name of my Lidotchka 
110 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

which was so much part of her being. 
She is gone, and now the diary only remains 
to me. 

Lidotchka died on the 27th March, four 
days after we had taken Przemysl. She 
became unwell on the very day of rejoicing 
and her illness lasted only three days and 
three nights. It was appendicitis she had, 
in an acute form, only we did not realise 
it until it was too late to do anything. 
It was twenty-four hours before we could 
get a doctor to see her, every man of 
them being busy at the military hospitals. 
I fell in with one in the street who turned 
away as soon as he looked at her, declaring 
that there was no danger, and we could 
safely wait. The child was dying, and he 
asked us to wait, and we waited ! I was 
even fool enough to apologise for having 
kept him away from his more important 
duties. We waited with despair in our 
111 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

hearts ; we did not like to worry any one 
needlessly. We smiled and tried to keep 
up our courage, fools that we were ! When 
at last the surgeon from Sashenka's hospital 
came he declared it was appendicitis, and 
too late for an operation. 

How could I have believed the first 
man and waited ! How could I have let 
her lie parched with fever, moaning and 
suffering, and do nothing ? There she was, 
dying and trusting me ! How senseless 
and wicked it was ! I remember her 
black, trusting eyes, her parched lips as 
I touched mine against them lightly, 
and how I stroked her tangled hair. On 
one occasion I bathed her face with eau- 

r 

de-cologne and felt satisfied that I was 
doing all that was required. And the 
poor child suffered agonies. It seemed 
impossible that such a small child should 
suffer such great pain. 
112 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

On the third day I ran about like one 
possessed. I shouted at the doctors, I 
threw money in their faces. " I will pay ! 
I will pay ! " I cried in despair. In one 
doctor's waiting-room, I can't remember 
where it was, I struck my head against 
the lintel of the door in a woman's presence, 
hoping thereby to arouse pity. . . . 

But that is nothing. 

For hours I hunted all over the town, 
and the surgeon had been twice to our 
house and assured me that an operation 
was useless and would only torment the 
child for nothing. I put her into the 
coffin myself and carried her to the table. 

And here am I living as though nothing 
particular had happened. I go to my 
office, I acknowledge my friends in the 
street, I read the papers. We are being 
defeated on all hands, and driven out of 
Poland and Galicia. Przemysl has been 
h 118 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

retaken. We never got a chance. The 
gendarme Miasoyedov sold Russia for thirty 
pieces of silver. Well, well, I don't exactly 
hate every one, but I'm getting on in that 
direction. Only I hold my peace. 



%9th June. 

How can I express my grief and despair ? 
They are beyond words and tears, and 
human understanding. I scrutinise my 
face carefully in the glass to see if I have 
changed, but there does not seem any 
difference. There is one grey-haired fool 
in the glass and another outside of it. 
My hair has turned grey. 

30th June. 

When the great die, the town is steeped 
in mourning and flags are hung up to 
inform the population of the fact. Had 
114 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

I been great and had I possessed the 
gift of eloquence, I would have raised 
my voice and made the whole world 
mourn for my Lidotchka, but I am only 
an insignificant little man, and can merely 
cry for her as a cow cries for its lost calf. 
Even a cow is more effective in her grief, 
for her cries may be heard by someone 
in the night, while I have to stifle my sobs 
for fear that others may hear and object. 

How contemptible I am ! nothing but 
a " cell." 

I remember a certain day — a day to 
which I could erect a bronze memorial 
for the edification of posterity. It was a 
week after Lidotchka's death, and I, like 
a conscientious worker, returned to the 
confounded office. The other fellows are 
kind-hearted enough ; they remarked upon 
the fact that my hair had turned grey, 
and expressed their sympathy in the usual 
115 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

polite way of " Lost a little daughter ? 
Dear, dear, what a pity it is ! " 

It was a pity, but what did it matter ? 
Wasn't I working and adding up figures ? 
When the band of crepe caught the eye 
of the sympathetic, I was greeted with, 
" Have you lost someone at the war ? M 

" No, not at the war. I have lost my 
little daughter Lidia." 

" Oh ! " 

I could see they were disappointed. 

Zvoliansky, the Pole, remarked casually 
— with every degree of politeness and 
propriety, of course, that no one ought 
to wear mourning at a time like this, not 
even for relatives killed at the front. One 
must consider the public nerves. It stands 
to reason that when a man dresses himself 
up in a smart tie and patent shoes he 
doesn't want to meet the spectacle of a 
gloomy, grey-haired old man in mourning. 
116 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

It would spoil his pleasure. Zvoliansky did 
not dare to say as much, but his remarks 
implied it plainly. If people had no right 
to wear mourning for those killed at the 
front — the only dead that matter now — 
what right had I to wear it for a six-year- 
old little girl who died a natural death ? 
Weren't there enough six-year-old little 
girls in the world ? 

I was led to understand, though it was 
gently done, that I had acted inconsider- 
ately in flaunting my grief before the 
eyes of others. It was as though I had 
got drunk in the midst of the general 
sobriety. A casual acquaintance met in 
the street made me realise this to the 
full with his exclamation of "A little 
girl? Oh!" 

But do I argue ? I have submitted 
to public opinion and put my band of 
crepe in my pocket. I must be careful 
117 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

of other people's feelings. As a patriot 
I have no right to hurt anyone. A patriot 
or a worm, I wonder ? 
But I hold my tongue. 

3rd July. 

It was raining and I walked under 
my umbrella, wondering what was the 
most important of all things. The most 
important thing of all is to bury. Killing 
doesn't matter, it will happen sometimes, 
but to bury is essential. As soon as things 
are covered up and nothing is to be seen, 
all is well. What would it be like if the 
four or five million who have now been 
killed had been left unburied ? What a 
stench there would be, and how many 
torn uniforms ! 

Despair, and no way to express it. 
Like a fool I can't say what's in my heart. 
And how long my legs have grown ! I 
118 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

can feel how long they are as I walk. 
Am I going mad ? 

The same night. 

You may call me a heartless blackguard, 
a criminal or anything you like, but by 
God, I am not in the least sorry for our 
killed. I don't care what happens to our 
men. I didn't order them to be killed. 
If men will rend and kill each other, let 
them, by all means ; it has nothing to do 
with me. 

The house seems deserted and full of 
horrors invisible. Last year, at this 
time, we were in the country, Lidotchka 
was with us and no foreboding of ill. 

I wonder sometimes when I look at 
Peter and Jena, my two youngest children, 
whether it wouldn't be best to tie a piece 
of cord around their necks and jump off 
the Troitsky Bridge with them into the 
119 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

water. No one wants them, they are 
miserable, neglected little " cells." They 
keep on crying all the time. Peter nearly 
cut his head against the table, and came 
to me to kiss his bump and pity him, 
but I can't pity. Poor children ! Their 
mother is in the hospital looking after 
the wounded — doing her duty ; their father, 
like Satan, rummages about the streets 
for peace of mind, and they are left with 
a stupid nurse and a half-witted grand- 
mother. What an existence ! 

What a strange animal man is ! I 
can make my blood flow with one prick of 
my knife — but I can't wring a single tear. 
I can't sleep in consequence, and am 
frightened of my sofa. I sleep in my 
study now, on the sofa. That is to say, 
I toss about the live-long white night. The 
light comes in at window, for there are 
no curtains over it. 

no 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

Last night, tired of tossing about, I got 
up, and from three to five o'clock I sat on 
my window-sill smoking, and looking out on 
the dead town. It was as light as day 
and not a soul to be seen anywhere. Like 
ours, the house opposite has many windows, 
both up- and down- stairs. Not a single 
sign of life was to be seen in any of 
them. 

I had nothing on but my pants and 
shirt, and I sat there or paced the room, 
barefoot, wondering whether I had gone 
mad. 

By day my study is an ordinary 
room, and I an ordinary man, but I 
wonder what people would think if they 
saw us at night ? I am barefoot at this 
moment, and have nothing on but my 
pants. 

What makes me write all this ? 



121 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

6th July. 

I am a completely changed man. I've 
no pity or affection for anyone, not even 
for my children. Pure hatred only inspires 
me. When I walk through the town and 
look at the houses and people, I think, 
and even smile at the thought, " I wish 
the earth would open and swallow you 
all up ! " A beggar stretched his hand 
out to me to-day, and I gave him such 
a look that his tongue stuck, and his hand 
dropped to his side. What a look it must 
have been ! 

I can't cry ; I can't remember how 
it's done. Not only my tears have dried 
up, altogether I seem to have become 
dry ; on the hottest day I never perspire. 
A curious thing ; I must ask a doctor 
about it. 

Sashenka took notice of me to-day. 
122 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

She cried to see me like this. But like 
what ? She wondered that I did not 
read the newspapers, but what can one 
learn from the papers ? That we have 
Miasoyedovs, that wholesale slaughter is 
going on, we know without their aid. I 
don't want to read them. 

" How is your digestion ? " Sashenka 
asked. 

" My digestion ? Why ? Have I got a 
digestion ? Oh, yes ! It's quite well, thank 
you. How are your wounded ? " 
" They are your wounded, too." 
" Oh, no, I didn't make them." 
" Why are you so hard-hearted, Ilenka ? " 
she asked through her tears. 

" How ? my kind-hearted Sashenka ? " 

She was annoyed at that and went back 

to the hospital, not forgetting to slam the 

door behind her, like a truly affectionate 

wife. I don't care, only it's not good for 

123 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

the children ; and one must think of them 
sometimes. 

I can hardly believe I have a wife ; we 
so rarely see each other. She is always at 
the hospital. A great many wounded 
arrived on Saturday, so many that there 
were not enough beds for them all, and 
some had to be put on the floor. Sasha 
did not come home that day for the 
children's bath. This is not the first 
occasion on which it has happened. Nurse 
usually bathes them under these circum- 
stances, but that day it came into my 
head to do Jena myself. The boy has 
grown awfully thin. I could count all 
his ribs ; he has such small bones. When 
I rubbed down his poor little body and 
thin hair, I wondered why I couldn't cry. 
Even when I scratched the poor child 
in my clumsiness, and he burst into tears, 
I still felt no pity. His crying only 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

annoyed me, and I handed him over to 
the nurse. What is the matter with me ? 
There was a time, old men tell us, when 
people in my condition were healed by 
prayer in church, but who would pray 
for me ? What nonsense I am talking? 
to be sure ! 

There is no pity in my heart for Russia 
even ; her groans affect me not. I have 
no pity for myself, and I think if Sasha 
were to die this moment, I wouldn't turn 
a hair. There is a rumour of cholera in 
town, but what do I care ? Let there 
be cholera or an epidemic of small pox or 
the plague, it makes no difference to me. 



9tk July. 

There was quite a sensation in our 
office to-day. Zvoliansky, the Pole, has 
joined the army as a volunteer. He wants 
125 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

to defend Warsaw with his own hand, 
so to speak. At first we thought he was 
only bragging, but it turned out to be 
true. Who would have expected it of 
him ? He used to brag so much that no 
one would have given him the credit of 
it. The other fellows arranged all sorts 
of treats for him, of course, but I did not 
take part in them, saying that I was not 
well. Let them parade their patriotism 
without my aid. I am not afraid of their 
sneers and suspicions ! 

In the private talks I've had with 
Zvoliansky, I've always heard him say, in 
high flown terms, that if he did not take 
part in the war now his conscience would 
never give him any peace afterwards. Con- 
science indeed ! One can understand his 
anxiety about Poland, but the least said 
about conscience, the better. 

Conscience, conscience ; you can't get 
126 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

away from it, no matter how hard you 
try. Conscientious people are to be seen 
everywhere. They quite alarm a fool like 
me. To plunder, to betray, to starve 
children, is all done in the name of con- 
science. No one can raise any objections. 
It's war time, you see, and can't be helped ! 
So the war and the tears only serve to 
make unscrupulous tradesmen and manu- 
facturers grow fat and to build them big 
houses and motor-cars that the public 
admire. They deserve to be hanged, every 
man of them, but it can't be done because 
of conscience. 

I happened to notice that our poor 
old mother always conceals her feet under 
her skirt when she sits down, and I couldn't 
understand the reason of it, until I dis- 
covered that the old lady's shoes were 
so worn that her toes came through. 
Poor soul ! When I said to her, " Mother, 
127 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

aren't you ashamed ? Why didn't you 
tell me or Sashenka ? " she burst into 
tears. I couldn't get a word out of her 
in explanation. Some absurd idea of 
economy of hers, no doubt, that I had 
upset. It seems so ridiculous to economise 
and be careful of every farthing when, 
sooner or later, a farthing saved is sure 
to find its way into some contractor's 
pocket. It is worked like a conjuring trick. 
I bought mother a pair of prunella shoes 
and presented them to her solemnly with 
the due feelings of a benefactor. She 
burst into tears again, of course, and as I 
watched them roll down her cheeks, I 
thought, " If only she'd give me one of 
them ! 

16th July. 

Andrei Vasilevitch, the man who was 
to have read my diary, was badly wounded, 
128 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

and died in a hospital in Warsaw. All 
peace to his soul ! No one will read my 
diary now. It is as well, perhaps. I seem 
to be alone in hell, surrounded by dancing 
demons and beckoning sinners. What good 
am I or my diary to anyone ? It seems 
absurd, but my wife has known for a 
long time that I keep a diary, and has 
never expressed the smallest desire or 
curiosity to see it. Writing a diary or 
cracking sun-flower seeds is all the same 
to her ! 

Even a mouse gets more attention ; one 
hurls a boot at it when it makes a noise. 

But what right has a little worm like 
me to attention and sympathy when so 
many more worthy than I go under daily ? 
It would be a fine thing, indeed, if every 
little " cell " doomed to perdition were 
to begin to howl and object like a full- 
grown organism ! 

i 129 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

I saw some refugees from Poland in 
the Morskaya to-day. Pretty figures they 
make ! 

11th July. 

I can't exist like this ! I wasn't made 
for wicked, vicious thoughts, and can 
find no others in my wretched soul. Sleep 
has deserted me. I am consumed in- 
wardly by a white flame like a tree that 
is drying at the roots. I am afraid to 
look at my contorted face in the glass. 
I wander about until I am ready to drop 
and my legs are as heavy as lead, then 
I fling myself on my bed, and go to sleep 
instantly ; but at three in the morning 
I start up, as at the sound of a drum, 
and go to my window-sill, and there I 
sit until five or six, staring aimlessly at the 
Petrograd night, also sleepless. Horrible 
light ! horrible night ! Whether it's pour- 
130 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

ing with rain and the walls of the houses 
are soaking wet, or the sun is playing 
among the chimney pots, it is appalling 
alike in this dead, motionless town. It 
seems as if the prophecy was fulfilled 
and mankind was destroyed, and over 
the scene of destruction shone the useless 
light of a useless day. 

The house opposite is flat and high. 
If you happened to fall from the top 
there would be nothing to clutch hold 
of to stop you. I can't get rid of a tor- 
menting thought that I've fallen from 
the roof, down, down, to the pavement, 
past windows and cornices. The sensa- 
tion is so real as to make me sick. To 
get away from the sight of that wall I 
pace the room, but there is little comfort 
in that. I step cautiously over the creaking 
floor, bare-foot, in pants only, seeming 
more and more like a lunatic or a hunted 
131 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

murderer. And still it is light ! And 
still it is light ! 

I can't go on like this ! In like con- 
ditions, I suppose, men write the words, 
" Accuse no one of my death ; I am 
tired of life." 

What rubbish I allow myself to talk ! 
I am simply not well, and must treat 
myself. I really must be more careful 
of my health. 

Lidotchka, my angel, set me free. Give 
me tears that I may weep for you ! I 
can't go on as I am. Pray to God for me ; 
you are so near to Him ; you can look into 
His eyes. Ask Him to have mercy on 
your father, Lidotchka, my darling, my 
silent angel ; remember how I carried you 
from the bed to the table, and held you 
close, oh, so close. . . . 



132 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

%\st July. 

What a hard time we are going through ! 
God spare Russia ! From end to end of 
the vast land people are praying for 
Russia's salvation. 

I am ashamed to confess in what a vain 
frame of mind I set out for the Kazan 
Cathedral, where a public service was to 
be held. I don't know at what moment 
I suddenly began to see and understand. 
I only remember that at first I smiled 
superciliously and cast my eye about for 
other clever fellows like myself, with whom 
to exchange knowing glances. I was 
horribly annoyed at the pushing and shov- 
ing, and stuck out my elbows ostenta- 
tiously for the benefit of my neighbours. 
But when did daylight come ? 

No words can describe the impressive- 
ness of the sight. From every street 
133 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

and alley hundreds of thousands of people 
were streaming to one particular spot to 
offer up their common prayers to God. 
It seemed like some practical joke at 
first, or a showy parade ; but when they 
came and came, and there was no breath- 
ing space, and still they kept on coming, 
the solemnity of it made cold shivers 
run down my back. " What does it 
mean ? ,! you asked yourself with a 
shudder, but no one heard you, and no 
one replied, and still the people kept 
on coming and coming. The solemnity 
and gravity was enhanced by the very 
fact that no one paid any heed to you, 
and you paid no heed to them. Your 
heart began to beat fast. What a vital 
occasion it must be to bring so many 
people together so intent for the purposes 
of prayer ! Is it for my small mind to 
question and criticise ? 
134 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

Men were not ashamed to weep ; some 
even forgot to dry their tears. All restraint 
was abandoned. " How naive the people 
are ! " I thought like a fool, as I eyed 
a robust-looking peasant, a yard-porter, 
or cabman, no doubt, whose tears were 
streaming down his cheeks. Suddenly I 
felt a moistness in my own eyes, dry for 
so long, and I wept shame-facedly, not 
yet appreciating the value of my tears, 
and raising my eyes artfully to heaven, 
lest some one should see. " God, how 
far away Thou art, yet how near ! " I 
thought. 

All at once a shudder went through me, 
and I seemed to be pierced by a heavenly 
fire. On wings invisible I seemed to soar 
on high to the white clouds, and from that 
height I looked down on this land we call 
Russia. I saw that it was she, and no 
other land, that was menaced by misery 
135 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

indescribable ! It was against her the 
enemy was marching with fire and bomb ! 
And it was for Russia, for Russia's salva- 
tion, we were praying ! Once more I 
looked at the people ; they wept, and I 
wept with them. They did not spurn 
me, those near me, but leant trustingly 
against my breast. Lunatic ! What had 
I been thinking of before ? An intense 
love for these people came over me. I 
could hardly contain myself. I could have 
cried aloud for love of them. I could cry 
aloud at this moment when I recall the 
sensation. 

It's difficult to express what I felt. 
Though only a few hours have gone by 
since the great moment, I cannot see 
Russia as I saw her then. She is only a 
map to me now, yet then I had seen 
and known so clearly. I do remember, I 
suppose, but I cannot express it in words. 
136 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

Oh, God, save Russia ! Spare her, foolish 
as she is ! 

I ought to leave off now, but the tears 
will come, and why shouldn't I let them ? 
Yesterday when I got home and saw mother 
wiping Peter's nose with her trembling 
hand, I remembered Pavel, and, unable 
to contain myself, I sobbed aloud like a 
child. I fell on my knees before mother 
and kissed her wrinkled, aged hand. Nurse 
was there, and she, too, could not keep 
back her tears. How guilty I feel before all 
decent people ! I had good reason to cry ! 

I must stop now or I shall become un- 
intelligible. My thoughts come so quickly. 
Let them come. 

The same night. 

Once more I can't sleep. My heart is 
filled with anxiety. I am shivering with 
cold. I am still thinking of Russia. 
137 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

Man is not slow to utilise his experiences 
to his advantage. There is something very 
subtle about it. I had no sooner learned 
to love Russia than I hastened home to 
lavish affection on my own children., Peter 
and Jena. The very desire to love them 
was wonderful after my coldness and hard- 
ness of heart that had made me forget 
their existence. 

I bought them some fruit from a stand : 
a thing I had not done for a long time. 
I rather fear now that it may upset their 
little stomachs. Jena has grown so thin 
that it makes my heart ache to look at 
him. His eyes are pensive like Lidotchka's. 
He used to be such a happy little 
fellow ! Has the trouble affected him 
too? 

A horrible fear has come over me again. 
I must go to bed, even though I can't 
sleep ; it may prevent horrible thoughts 
138 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

from entering my head. The children . . . 
Russia. . . . 

I haven't seen Sashenka to-day. She 
came home when I was at the office, and 
has not been able to get away again, I 
suppose. I am sorry I did not see her. 
I wanted to go to the hospital, but after 
my long absence I was afraid it might 
look funny. 

Sashenka, Sashenka, my dear ! 

This, then, is the meaning of Russia ! 



29th July. 

Depression and despair once again. I 
awoke for a brief moment and got a glimpse 
of reality, and again I have lapsed into 
sleep, eternal and restless. The newspapers 
fill one with horror. A dreadful rumour 
is abroad, and the office is full of incredible 
tales. They say Warsaw has fallen, and 
139 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

a great many other things, about which 
it would be best to keep silent. I have no 
faith in the Duma, but I should like to 
see it convoked. 
I am afraid. 

1st August. 

The town is in a state of depression ; 
the people in the streets look grave. Only 
some hooligan may be seen to laugh, 
or a contractor, portly and unscrupulous, 
who stalks along in sublime indifference. 
The pig ! 

As I write these words the Germans 
may be entering Warsaw. When I close 
my eyes I see them as plainly as on the 
film of a kinematograph, with their pointed 
helmets, marching victoriously through the 
ruined, deserted streets, past blazing 
houses. I remember how the men in our 
office used to joke about Wilhelm's pre- 
140 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

sumptuousness, the stories they used to 
tell of his having declared he would dine 
in Paris and sup in Warsaw, and the like ; 
and while the fools were enjoying the 
joke, the Germans have come ! they are 
here ! What can we do ? The disgrace 
of it! 

How could we have been so blind as 
not to foresee the danger ? Again I shut 
my eyes and see their pointed helmets, 
the flames, the panic-stricken inhabitants 
crouching behind the houses. What is 
the use of their hiding ? Supposing it 
were not Petrograd where I sat writing 
in the dead of night, but in Warsaw, with 
the Germans marching across the bridge, 
entering the town. . . . Horrible thought ! 
A loud knock comes at my door, and a 
German walks in and looks about him, 
strutting from room to room as though 
the place belonged to him. He questions 
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CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

me with a rifle in his hand, and keeps from 
shooting me down only out of a feeling 
of charity. How would I look into his 
blue Teutonic eyes ? Would I smile to 
him, out of politeness only, of course, but 
would I? No! 
I shall not sleep to-night. 

8th August 

The Duma has met, and the sittings are 
in progress. I pray for fortitude when I 
read and re-read the reports of the terrible 
speeches. I devour each sentence with 
my eyes. There must be some mistake. 
It can't be that there are no shells ! No 
shells ! Shells were promised, but our 
men were left in the lurch ! Our gallant 
soldiers tried to stay the Germans with 
their naked hands ! To think of it ! 
What is the country coming to ? 

I don't understand. There must be 
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DURING GREAT DAYS 

something wrong. What about the people 
who prayed in the Kazan Square ? How 
dared they call upon God when they 
betrayed our men ? But was it the people 
who betrayed ? I heard their prayers, and 
I prayed with them ; I saw their hot 
tears and their anguish, but there was no 
sign of the fear and shame the guilty 
must feel before the all-seeing eyes of 
God. Was it then different people who 
prayed, and different people who betrayed ? 
I don't know, but I feel sure that the 
country is not guilty ; I could swear to 
that by the life of my children ! Some- 
thing is wrong somewhere. 

I can't convey the impression I got 
when I first read the speeches of the 
Duma members. A big German shell 
seemed to have burst in my brain, deafen- 
ing, blinding, and shaking me to the very 
roots of my being. It seemed to deprive 
143 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

me of human speech ; I could only jabber 
unintelligibly and look horror-stricken. 
Every one seemed to be affected in the same 
way. Even the fellows in the office, who 
always talked so lightly and decided all 
questions so easily, were almost speechless 
with consternation. They couldn't work, 
and sat about in their shirt sleeves, red as 
boiled lobsters, devouring the papers, and 
making the office-boy run for every new 
edition. When they had had their fill, 
they set up an uproar, banging their fists 
on the table and shouting : 

" I told you so ! " 

" What did I say ? " 

" No one would listen to me ! " 

" It was you who would not listen, I 
maintained. . . ." 

One and all had maintained and 
prophesied, and the mischief had come 
through no one listening to them. And 
144 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

who had taken Tsar-Grad, and walked 
through the streets of Berlin, and even 
bought a tie in some shop on the Freidrich 
Strasse ? They had all forgotten that. 

The thing that surprises me most about 
them is the way they'll say the most horrible 
things to each other — things one would 
think that would keep any man awake 
for a week — and then be as chummy as 
possible together. It seemed as if they 
were anxious to show off the good spirit 
in the office. After the most abusive 
argument one will begin on " Satirikon," 
another will collect subscriptions for some 
choice refreshment, to be consumed in 
the back room, far removed from the eyes 
of the chief. It's a good thing they can't 
get vodka. 

Sashenka is another person who sur- 
prises me. Filled as I was with a burning 
desire to communicate my strange, new 
k 145 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

impressions about these painful events, I 
naturally thought of her as some one 
who would like to share my thoughts, 
and even pictured the solemn, profound 
conversation we would have ; or perhaps 
no conversation at all ; we might com- 
mune in silence, I thought, a silence that 
would convey more than words, all that 
was in our hearts. . . . But it turned 
out differently. When I opened my eyes 
wide in astonishment and asked, " You've 
read about it, I suppose ? " she looked 
alarmed at my expression, and said, 
11 What ? " 

" How what ? I'm referring to the 
speeches in the Duma." 

" What speeches ? . . . Oh, yes, I just 
glanced at them. I'm too busy to read. 
The Lord knows what they are after." 

Failing to notice her indifference, I 
began to expound the situation with 
146 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

warmth, explaining everything with great 
detail ; but suddenly I realised by the 
expression of pensiveness on her face, by 
her downcast eyes, and the strange com- 
pression of her lips, that she was not 
listening to me, but was engrossed in some 
thoughts of her own. I was hurt and 
angry. I didn't mind on my own account 
so much, as that she should ignore a thing 
so vital for all Russia. 

" I don't think much of your patriotic 
spirit, Sashenka," I said coldly, and 
impressibly. 

She blushed, and a pang went through 
my heart as I saw the colour spread over 
her pale, worn features. 

" Don't be angry with me, Ilenka dear, 
for having wandered off and missed part 
of what you said. It's not so very im- 
portant, is it ? " 

" Not important ! " I exclaimed angrily. 
147 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

" You can hardly be aware of what you 
are saying, Sasha ! Surely only a traitor 
who rejoiced in Russia's downfall could 
say a thing like that ! Don't you under- 
stand ? We have no shells ! Aren't you 
sorry for our poor, patient, unarmed soldiers 
whom the well-armed Germans can defeat 
with a smile on their faces ? " 

She was impressed by that. Her eyes 
opened wide, and she said with alarm in 
her voice, " It is dreadful, but what can 
we do ? " 

" That's what everyone is trying to 
decide, and you say it is not important. 
It's horribly important, Sashenka ! It's 
so important that it makes you go mad 
to think of it ! " 

At that point some one came from the 

hospital to fetch her to attend to some man 

who had both arms amputated, and refused 

to eat unless Sashenka fed him. She 

148 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

instantly forgot everything, and with a 
guilty look, she gave me a hasty kiss on 
the ear, and whispered, " Don't be angry 
with me, dear ; I can't. . . ." And she 
was gone. 
What couldn't she ? . . . 



11th September. 

An unexpected thing has happened. 
Nikolai, my brother-in-law, who appears 
to be in Moscow, sent me a polite letter, 
offering me money. It has taken him a 
whole year to remember his mother, and 
now he proposes to take a share in 
supplying her wants. He never mentioned 
Sashenka or Pavel, or little Lidotchka. 

His letter sent me into a fury, and I 
wrote a reply that he won't be in a hurry 
to forget. I didn't want to bother Sash- 
enka, so I never said anything to her 
149 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

about it. The blackguard ! I knew he 
had been contracting lately, and made 
about a million. I heard about it from 
the fellows in my office. A million ! We 
know the things necessary to make such 
a sum ! And this unscrupulous traitor, 
in the largeness of his heart, offers me 
one of his thirty pieces of silver ! No, 
Nikolai, I would sooner starve than touch 
a penny of your money ! Your filthy 
lucre is tainted with blood ; you could 
never wash your hands clean again when 
you had touched it ! It doesn't become 
your mother to live on your contaminated 
money ! She has lost a dearly-beloved, 
honest son at the front ! 

God! Why dost Thou let the weight 
of Thy anger fall on the weak ? Wreak 
Thy vengeance on men like these, the 
rich and the strong, the traitors, the liars 
and the swindlers ! How long will they 
150 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

be permitted to mock at us and show their 
golden teeth, riding over us in their motor- 
cars with derisive laughter ? They are so 
shameless in their security that it drives 
one mad with despair to think of one's 
own impotence. When you remonstrate 
with them, they smile ; when you try to 
make them see the disgrace, it amuses 
them ; when you entreat and implore, 
they laugh in your very face. After 
robbing and betraying the country, they 
sleep soundly in their beds as on the 
softest pillows of eider-down. 

It makes one's blood boil to think that 
no punishment awaits them. It is not 
right that blackguards should be triumph- 
ant in this world ! It takes away respect 
for honesty, it kills justice, it makes life 
meaningless. It is blackguards like these 
against whom we ought to declare war, 
and not break each other's heads because 
151 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

one man happens to be a German and 
another a Frenchman. Mild as I am by 
nature, I would be the first to take up 
arms in such a war, and would delight in 
sending a bullet into one of their brazen 
foreheads ! 

What's the good of patience ? Nikolai's 
letter has stirred my blood. And why 
did my Lidotchka die, my poor innocent 
child, eternally and beloved, divine flower 
from Thy garden, oh Lord ? Was she 
an ill-gotten million to be snatched 
from my beggarly ? It's horrible, horrible ! 
Many are the people who are cursing in 
torment as I am ! Perish, miserable worm, 
that's all you're good for ! Perish, and 
then you can rest ! Have not enough 
of you Dementevs perished cursing, to be 
sure, and crying aloud in the hope that 
justice might be done, and the golden 
crown set upon their brows ? But who 
152 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

bothers about them now ? They have 
perished, and there's an end of them. 



12th August. 

I follow the speeches in the Duma care- 
fully, and each day I seem to ascend higher 
up a mountain that opens out new visions 
before me. And what horrible visions 
they are ! The Germans are still in posses- 
sion of Warsaw and advancing steadily. 
When is this alarming advance to stop ? 
Our military experts declare that they 
cannot come beyond the forts of Vilna 
and Grodno, before whose impregnable 
walls they will crumple up. Ought not 
this to reassure us ? But I am not re- 
assured ; I seem to feel their physical 
nearness and never turn a street corner 
without an absurd fear of seeing a German 
come rushing out. How clearly I see his 
153 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

German face, and spiked helmet ! I can 
almost hear his insolent Teutonic speech. 
God forbid that it should come to pass ! 

Talking of visions, they make one's 
hair stand on end. Why am I small and 
insignificant ? I am honest enough, how 
is it I didn't see and understand? Why 
did I trust as idiotically as a bewitched 
ass — if one can use the expression — when 
the country was in danger ? The country 
in danger — what appalling words ! What 
use am I to the country ? Any horse is 
far more useful than I, for all my 
wretched honesty. Wretched is the very 
word for it. 

God save Russia ! The words are heard 
on all hands, even among the sceptical 
fellows in the office. Supposing God re- 
fuses to save her ? Supposing God were 
to say, " Perish with your Miasoyedovs, 
since you are so stupid and corrupt ! " 
154 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

Should we have to go under ? I shudder 
at the thought ! I can't admit it ; I 
will fight against it with every ounce 
of strength I possess ! And my heart 
is cold and apprehensive and desperate. 
What can I do ? The country needs 
Samsons and heroes, and what kind of a 
hero am I ? A sinner stripped I stand at 
the last judgment, quaking and unable 
to say a word in my own defence, for 
earthly subterfuges are over. 

This is the case of Ilya Petrovitch 
Dementev, a clerk, who lived through the 
great war. 



155 



PART III 

18th August. 

In my excitement of the last few days 
I have accused myself of many unjust 
things. Excitement is a poor guide when 
a man wants to take a sober view of 
things. I must have been too upset by 
these unexpected revelations that flowed 
from the mouths of our Duma Ciceros 
as freely as abundance from the horn of 
plenty. If I had been blind, what were 
our Ciceros doing? Their eyes, at any 
rate, ought to have been more penetrating. 
I don't deny that I am powerless, but 
unfortunately it is not my fault that I 
am so. I am what I am. Had I been 
born a Samson or a Joffre, I should have 

157 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

been a Samson or a Joffre. No man is 
fool enough, knowing me to be no mathe- 
matician, to set me a problem of integral 
calculus to solve ; in the same way, how 
can I be expected to solve the problem 
of the Great War and Russian corruption ? 
I didn't begin the war ! I'm not respon- 
sible for the filthy mess we have got into, 
and I don't see why it should be put upon 
my shoulders ! It's both absurd and un- 
just. To tell a man to clear away a 
mountain, and not give him so much as 
a spade to do it with ! I should like 
to see those gentlemen tackling the job ! 
The office has settled down quietly 
again, thank God, and I'm glad to say 
the children are well. Mother had a 
slight stomach trouble, but is better now. 
The old lady is very tough, and may 
outlast the lot of us, I shouldn't wonder. 
But she has absolutely no memory. 
158 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

I've thought of having the walls in the 
nursery and the study repapered at my 
own expense. The paper in my study 
reminds me of those terrible white July 
nights, when, like a madman, I used to 
sit, almost naked, on my window-sill, or 
paced the floor, barefoot. I used to count 
each flower in the pattern, and knew each 
curve and spot by heart. 

I was uncertain at first, whether this 
was the right time for doing it, but on 
reflection, I came to the conclusion that 
this was the very best time indeed. Why 
should one let circumstances get the better 
of one, and because there's a war, live like 
a pig ? The war may go on if it likes, 
but my house and my children are my 
own. 

Jena made me laugh last night when I 
watched him getting to bed. The little 
rascal has grown quite fat and rosy of late. 
159 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

He's a dear boy ! When he had finished 
a prayer I had taught him, in which he 
prayed for his father and mother and the 
soldiers at the front, and ended up with 
the words, " Merciful God, let me wake 
to-morrow, sinner that I am," he promptly 
stood on his head, exposing his naked little 
body, and turned a somersault with huge 
delight. I wish all sinners could be like 
him. 

Sashenka approved of my letter to 
her brother. She thought it showed fine 
feeling. He hasn't replied, but I hardly 
expected him to. 

20th August 

I am putting the house to rights. It 
has been woefully neglected. The heavy 
curtains and the couch and chairs in my 
study are full of moth. Just to make a 
change, I have shifted the furniture and 
160 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

converted the dining-room into my study. 
I am not sure that it looks better, but 
it is certainly an improvement to get a 
different view from my window. I come 
to hate my former view of the smug house 
opposite with its many windows. They 
used to depress me and make me feel 
sick at heart. Many was the time I could 
see myself falling past them and past the 
flat, disgusting walls. How strangely man 
is constituted ! I couldn't help reflecting 
on this as I helped the porter move 
the furniture. Birds migrate to the south 
when they feel the winter coming on, 
while man begins to find a new attraction 
for his little box of a home, and sets about 
making it as comfortable as he can for 
the stormy weather. The moving would 
have amused and distracted me, had not 
the face of my darling Lidotchka, that 
is ever before my eyes, made me recall 
l 161 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

former years when she used to help, in 
her own little way, and sent a pain through 
my heart. Lidotchka is gone, never to 
return. 

Many other things are gone, too, never 
to return. Desolation has penetrated even 
to the heart of our little home. I was 
obliged to give up all thoughts of re- 
papering. The cost of living has risen 
to such a degree as to make a poor man 
look with apprehension at the future. 
Bread and fuel. . . . But why should I 
fill my diary with the prosaic details of 
every-day life ? Dear, dear, the war is 
proving a monster, indeed ! 

The Germans continue to advance from 
Warsaw and are getting nearer and nearer 
to us. No one speaks about it, and all 
wait anxiously for new developments. We 
look askance at each other for any chance 
of some fresh news, but what fresh news 
162 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

can there be ? Even the Germans, it 
seems, know nothing, and no one in the 
whole world knows or understands. . . . 
The world is turned upside down. 



21st August. 

Kovno has fallen. Our military experts 
declared this fortress impregnable, and 
it was cracked like a nut and consumed 
instantaneously. 



%bth August. 



Osovetz has fallen. 



%8th August 

The fortress of Brest has been taken. 

It's a lucky thing for me that I have 

this diary, where I can speak of my fears 

without any sense of shame. One has to 

put on a brave countenance before others, 

163 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

and hide one's horrible fear. It would 
be a dreadful thing indeed if the whole 
population of Petrograd were to begin 
to tremble and to scream with terror, 
as I feel inclined to do at any moment ! 
And the terror is real, not silly talk cal- 
culated to alarm others, that gives the 
person creating the alarm a secret sense 
of pleasure. It makes you feel that you 
want to run away and hide, and you don't 
know where to go, nor how you'll get the 
money. You seem like a tree standing 
at the edge of a wood exposed to a hurri- 
cane that is drawing near ; you fold the 
leaves closer about you, while inwardly 
you quake to the very roots. 

I am living in the one hope that our 
office may be moved. There is a lot of 
whispering going on about it, and gathering 
together of books. I only wish it were 
true ! 

164 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

I no longer try to understand what it 
is that I fear so much, both for myself 
and the children. The word " war " no 
longer conveys any meaning to me. It is 
a dead word we have grown accustomed 
to using. Something living is drawing 
close to us now with a wild roar, some- 
thing living and immense, and it shakes 
the earth as it comes. " They are 
coming ! " There are no words terrible 
enough to equal these. " They are coming ! 
They are coming ! " 

The white nights after Lidotchka's death 
with all their torments, would have been 
preferable to this. You felt safer in the 
light. What can one do during the dark 
Autumn nights, terrible enough without 
any Germans ? Last night I couldn't sleep 
for fear. Horrible pictures floated through 
my brain. I saw the advancing Germans, 
I heard their unfamiliar speech, I saw 
165 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

their strange Teutonic faces and guns 
and knives, ready for their murderous 
work. As in a dream I saw them bustling 
about a baggage-train ; they were shouting 
at the horses in their own tongue ; they 
were rumbling in crowds over bridges ; 
I could hear their voices, so vivid did my 
vision of them appear. 

There were millions of them — pre- 
occupied, busy men with knives for our 
throats — and their ruthless faces were 
turned to us, to Petrograd, to Post Office 
Street, to me. They marched through 
country roads and villages ; they scrambled 
into motor-cars ; railway trains swarmed 
with them ; they were in aeroplanes drop- 
ping bombs from above ; they leapt from 
hill to hill ; they hid for a while, then 
rushed out again, coming another mile 
nearer to us ; they showed their teeth ; 
they dragged their knives and guns ; they 
166 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

set fire to houses ; and nearer and nearer 
they came. My hair stood on end. I 
felt myself in the midst of a lonely wood 
surrounded by cut-throat robbers creeping 
up to the house in the darkness of the 
night. 

I was reduced to such a condition in 
the end that I lay craning for every sound, 
and the merest rustle made me think 
that some one had come ready to pounce 
upon me. It was unbearable ! I am truly 
a coward, I can see that now, but I can't 
help it. What can I do ? It's horrible ! 

And not so long ago I was idiotic enough 
to think of repapering my rooms ! 



%9th August. 

1 have come to myself, somewhat, and 
Lake a more reasonable view of our position. 
The newspapers say, and the fellows in 
167 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

the office, too, that the Germans will never 
get to Petrograd. I wonder if they are 
right ? The streets are horribly dull, and 
if you happen to forget the Germans for 
a little, they seem the same dull streets 
as of old. There are the trams and the 
cabs and the shops, which are open as 
usual. There is more dust and dirt abroad, 
and a strong gust of wind nearly blinds 
you and chokes you with dried horse 
manure. Houses and palaces seem de 
serted and dirty too, and like clouds of 
dust and smoke, a thick fog hangs over 
the Neva, obscuring the other side of 
the river. 

I read the reports of the speeches in 
the Duma with great agitation, but a 
feeling of caution prompts me not to 
commit my impressions to paper. I still 
wonder at the utter blindness that made 
me trust so idiotically, seeing only the 
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DURING GREAT DAYS 

outward form of things. Where was my 
patriotism ? Any self-respecting State 
would have cast me out, but here I'm 
no worse than others, a respectable member 
of society, as things go, a family hen who 
struts about paying visits to other hens, 
and sets up a violent cackling over a broken 
egg. No more than a hen ! Splendid 
idea ! I see, now, the meaning of the 
phrase " chicken-hearted." My Jena is 
no more than a chicken. Many hens like 
me are to be seen in the streets with their 
chickens. . . . Stop ! 

The clerk Ilya Petrovitch Dementev is 
but a chicken-hearted fellow. 



3rd September. 

The greatest misfortune has happened 
to me. It has taken me four days to 
pluck up sufficient courage to write it. 
169 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

I ought to have foreseen that it would 
happen. I ought to have known by the 
way business was decreasing, and the 
general difficulties attending it, that it was 
bound to come, but my wanton blind- 
ness made me trust, and kept me from 
worrying. Our bank has gone smash, 
and the office is closed. Our chief died 
suddenly. They say he killed himself, 
and that the family are keeping it dark. 
All the employees were paid off. Those 
who, like myself, had been with the firm 
for a long time, were generously treated 
and received a full month's salary. It 
was certainly generous, considering the 
complete failure of the house. 

What shall I do now to support myself 
and the children ? The question is more 
alarming than the coming of the Germans. 
The Germans may or may not come, we 
do not know, but here am I faced by this 
170 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

fact. In a very little time the children 
and I will be starving. 

I haven't told Sashenka yet ; I dare not ; 
I can't find the words with which to do 
it decently. At home no one knows. I 
leave the house at the usual time in the 
morning and wander about the streets, 
dodging acquaintances or sitting in the 
Taurida Garden. At five I return home 
as though from the office. I must think 
of some plan ; I must make up my mind 
what to do. 

4*th September. 

For the first time in my life I find my- 
self out of work, not counting, of course, 
the few occasions when in my youth, I 
happened to find myself without a post 
for two or three weeks, but one took it 
so lightly then, as one does everything 
else in youth. I even forget what the 
171 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

experience was like. Now I am forty-six, 
and have a family. . . . 

What good am I to any one now ? 
What right have I to live ? I have no 
justification other than my willingness to 
work. So long as I had work and supported 
my helpless little ones, I was a man with 
a claim to respect and consideration, but 
now . . . I'm no better than the lowest 
ne'er-do-well ; I'm the most insignificant 
person on the face of the earth. I cannot 
even supply the needs of my own miser- 
able existence, let alone the needs of 
those depending on me. A sparrow peck- 
ing manure on the road has a greater 
right to live than I ! 

As long as I worked I was a person- 
ality, a visible, tangible quantity ; my little 
efforts helped to make the common wheel 
go round; now I am dead, as it were. I 
am no more than a ghost among the liv- 
172 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

ing, though to outward impressions alive. 
What a horrible condition to be in ! 
My voice even has changed, and assumed 
an ingratiating quality it used not to 
possess ; my walk has become slouching 
and cautious. I seem to be tip-toeing 
through the house, the only person awake, 
trying not to disturb the others. If it 
were not for the fact that most people 
were a little unlike themselves just now, 
mother would notice that it was only the 
ghost of my former self that went and came 
each day. I act very cleverly in Sashenka's 
presence not to let her see anything, but 
we so rarely meet now ; I do my best 
to avoid her as much as I can, on plea of 
pressing work. 

I know that I'm not to blame for what 
has happened ; I'm only the victim of 
circumstances, but that is small consola- 
tion. No self-respecting man could find 
173 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

consolation and satisfaction in the thought 
of being a victim. The more I think of it 
the more I hate myself for my inefficiency 
and limitations. My life hangs on the 
merest thread that any casual person can 
break at his will. What have I accom- 
plished to sit calmly with folded arms. 
Where are the indelible traces of my 
personality, the fruits of my labour ? 
Some chairs and tables, a few garments, 
two children, is the sum total of all my 
achievements. . . . But what am I 
saying? I have chests of drawers, down 
pillows, four hundred roubles in the savings 
bank, a lottery ticket in my pocket with 
which I stand the chance of winning two 
hundred thousand roubles. It would be 
both interesting and instructive to make 
a complete inventory of the things I have 
acquired by my own efforts during the 
whole of my life. 

174 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

It's overwhelming and shameful to think 
what little there is ! I can't stay in this 
flat for more than another month, and 
then. . . . Poor children, what a wretched 
father you possess ! 

1th September. 

I have made the round of my acquaint- 
ances, entered some two hundred doors 
with my letters of recommendation, but 
no one seems to have any use for " an 
honest, conscientious worker/' Many are 
not slow to give advice. One man advised 
me, from the height of his patriotic self- 
satisfaction, to get some war work, and 
to " mobilise industry " with the million- 
aire Riabushinsky, those of a more 
practical turn of mind told me to worm 
myself in, and to suck the war as a 
new-born babe its mother's breast, and, 
judging by my brother-in-law, this seems 
175 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

to be a very nourishing form of 
diet. 

I would profit by their wise and patriotic 
councils did not the thought of who would 
44 mobilise " my Peter and Jena have a 
deterring effect. As for the latter sugges- 
tion, I am sorry that I don't know where 
to find the beneficent breasts into which 
to dig my teeth. 

I'm stupid and unadaptable ; I can 
only do work I'm used to. God ! how I 
envy the rich ! With what despair and 
avarice do I look at their big houses with 
the plate-glass windows, and their motor- 
cars and carriages, and showy, loathsome 
clothes ; their gold and diamonds ! I 
hate to think that I can't do what they 
do ! Since all are plundering, why must 
I starve for some empty word like honour, 
which people only laugh at, if they think 
of it at all ? 

176 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

8th September. 

I'd die sooner than tell Sashenka that 
I've lost my work and can't keep the 
family. If only I hadn't been so over- 
bearing in days gone by ! If only I hadn't 
been so exacting and presumptuous ! To 
think of the way I used to come out with, 
44 You might be more careful about my 
food ! What would happen to you all 
if I were to fall ill ? " or, " Do keep the 
place quiet ! I must get a little rest ! " 
or, "Why is the tea cold? Why isn't 
my coat brushed ? Look at the fluff on 
the sleeve ! " The presumptuousness of 
it! 

I try to economise by going without 
food as much as I can. I never take 
any supper at all now, easily excusing 
myself on account of my precious diges- 
tion ; however, I very rarely feel hungry. 
m 177 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

I was overcome by the alarming thought 
yesterday that, running about as much 
as I do, I should wear out my boots, and 
I promptly went into the Rumiantsev 
Garden, where I sat for a couple of hours, 
to spare them. It will come to going 
about naked soon, to spare my clothes ! 

How long shall I be able to endure 
it ? My misery knows no bounds. Every 
sensitive spot in me has been pierced 
by the thorn. When I try to picture 
my heart it seems like a lump of stringy 
sausage made of dog flesh, rather than 
the keeper of lofty feelings and desires. 
What have I done to deserve it all ? Why 
must I bear this inhuman pain ? 

To make sport of a man like this ? 
How long will my patience last ? Why 
must I cringe and scrape ? Am I a 
coward ? 

As I wandered through the square 
178 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

yesterday, gazing at the dusty pavement, 
bestrewn with cigarette ends, at the tremb- 
ling leaves on the trees, at the houses on 
the other side of the river, the thought 
suddenly occurred to me that, did I but 
choose, I could join my darling Lidotchka 
in a few moments, my dear, eternally 
beloved child. Happiness smiled to me 
at the thought, a heavenly light seemed 
to descend upon my unfortunate head. 
I was, for the moment, rich and free, 
the richest and freest being in the whole 
world. 

Why do I go on struggling against odds ? 
Why am I careful of my boots, like 
a respectable pauper, when freedom and 
happiness are so close at hand in the 
deep, fastly-flowing river ? 

9th September, 
There's nothing to say. 
179 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

10th September. 

On the advice of a former fellow- clerk, 
who had managed to get himself a job 
with an army contractor, I set out to a 
certain cafe on the Nevsky, where business 
men were known to gather. Luck would 
depend entirely on an easy-going self- 
confident manner. I should have to tell 
a few lively stories, introduce myself to 
people, and then worm my way in. 

It turned out quite differently, though. 
I told no stories, nor could I put on a 
self-confident manner. I merely smiled, in 
the hope of attracting some sympathetic 
eye. I ordered some tea and a meat pie 
in an off-hand way, and when they were 
brought to me, I lapsed into a stony silence ; 
I seemed to lose the power of speech. I 
was stunned by the voices around me, 
by the alertness of the men to whom they 
180 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

belonged. It was a sight to see them 
walk in and roll their eyes about till 
they settled on the individual approach- 
ing them. They would be seated together 
in a moment, smoking and chatting like 
veritable old cronies, abusing each other 
one moment, and ready to fall on each 
other's necks the next. Though their 
talk was sufficiently loud and communica- 
tive at times, it was difficult to gather 
what they were driving at. One thing, 
however, seemed clear — something was 
being bought and sold, some one was 
being robbed, ruined, or betrayed. That 
was the way the money was made. 

They hadn't an air of money about them 
to look at. Most of them were shabby ; 
only two wore real diamonds in scarf-pins, 
studs and rings, the rest wore imitation 
ones. Their pocket-books, however, which 
most took out now and again, were all 
181 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

fat, and stuffed not with common paper, 
but with bank-notes. The sordidness may 
have been a matter of form, the livery 
essential to these men's service. Disgust- 
ing crowd ! 

I will say frankly that I set out to the 
cafe* with my mind fully made up, and 
without any moral scruples. Had one of 
them said to me, " Look here, Ilya 
Petrovitch, we want to break open a safe 
to-night," or, " We want to counterfeit 
money, will you join us for good pay ? " 
I should have accepted the commission 
without the smallest hesitation. At any 
rate, that is what I thought, but when I 
had been sitting there for an hour in 
stony silence, looking at their ties and 
faces, their dirty finger nails and diamond 
rings, I was filled with a loathing towards 
these men — not so much to what they 
stood for — I had no clear knowledge of 
188 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

that — as to the men themselves, to the 
infamy in their faces. Horrible crowd ! 

I was so struck by a certain black- 
moustached man among them that I 
forgot, for a time, the hopelessness of my 
own position. He was not old, robust 
and strong, and the only one among that 
rabble who was well-dressed ; he held 
himself with a calmness and dignity that 
inspired awe. He listened more than he 
spoke, smiling now and again, and refused 
to shake hands with a grubby man who 
approached him. Neither the man nor 
any one else paid any heed to that ; it 
was taken as a matter of course. Once 
he let his black eye fall on me, cruel and 
indifferent ; and, knowing him by instinct 
to be the rogue and swindler he was, I 
still felt the servile impulse to incline my 
head in an ingratiating way. I don't 
suppose he noticed me, or if he did, he 
188 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

must have soon sized me up at my true 
value, and turned his attention to some 
one else. He allowed no one to pay 
for his tea when he got up to go ; but 
five men followed him to the door, defer- 
ential even to his back. I learned after- 
wards from the remarks of the others, 
that the man had made several millions. 
Three or four was the figure mentioned, 
but even if half had been exaggerated, it 
still left the sufficient sum of two millions. 
I thought of the man for the rest of the 
day after I had left the cafe. What had 
he done to earn two millions ? What 
robberies and treacheries did they repre- 
sent ? What manner of man must he 
be ? W r hat kind of soul must he possess to 
be so calm, to fear neither the bloodshed, 
nor God, nor the devil ? I found it hard 
to believe that he was made of the same 
stuff as myself. I marvelled as I tried to 
184 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

recall his face, his powerful, robust figure, 
his calmness. I compared him to mother 
during dinner — mother who grudged her- 
self every morsel she ate. I tried to recall 
Pavel, and the awful moment when I 
informed her of his death, and still more 
did I marvel at the mysteries of human 
life. 

No amount of reflection on the rights 
and wrongs of it could have so com- 
pletely killed the desire to take my share 
of the plunder as the sight of that man. 
To be a big rogue, you must be born a 
big rogue, and I haven't the quickness, 
the ease of manner, nor lightness of heart 
to make a small one. It is given to 
some men to possess millions, to others 
a conscience — a truly wise division of 
wealth ! 



185 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

llth September. 

I've had a fit of extravagance. I 
enjoyed my supper. 

Earlier in the day I went into Eliseyev's 
and, throwing a rouble on the counter in 
the lordly way of a man who possessed 
four millions, I asked for a pound of 
Moscow sausage of which mother and the 
children are very fond. Why shouldn't 
they enjoy a good meal for once, and think 
kindly of the man who was able to supply 
it ? I bought two pounds of choice sweets, 
too, and two thousand cigarettes, which 
I took to Sashenka for her soldiers. I 
received her tender kiss and thanks with- 
out the smallest qualms of conscience. 
I hadn't courage enough to rob in the 
cafe, but didn't mind robbing at home. 

Despite the satisfaction of a hearty 
meal, I am filled with remorse at this 
186 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

moment, as though I had indeed com- 
mitted a robbery in the high-way. A 
full stomach, however, is stronger than 
remorse and conscience, and I soon began 
to yawn with the callousness of a million- 
aire. This is the first time I have felt 
sleepy since I lost my work. 

1 %th September. 
I did not sleep, however, even though 
I did feel sleepy. I no sooner got to bed 
than all desire for sleep left me. I lay 
tossing about or smoking the whole night, 
trying to think of some honest work I 
could do. A waiter in a restaurant seemed 
to me a possible idea, or a tram- conductor, 
since men were scarce now, but with 
morning and the sun, I realised the futility 
of it. How could I do a waiter's difficult 
task with my poor health and inexperience ! 
Such work was not for me ! 
187 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

14^ September. 

I am getting to know Petrograd as 
well as a tourist or a philosopher. I 
spend hours staring at monuments as 
though I had never seen them before. 
I try to understand their symbolic meaning. 
I inspect the palaces and new buildings. 
I am quite stirred by good architecture. 
With the greatest interest did I walk round 
the new Turkish Mosque near the Troitsky 
Bridge, to get a good view of it from all 
sides. I felt as though I were travelling 
in the Far East. I had my lunch on a 
bench in the Square, and meditated on 
the many different religions. I went into 
the Alexander III. Museum and admired 
the pictures. Acquaintances, only, I can't 
bear to meet, and disappear down a side 
street when I catch sight of one in the 
distance. 

188 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

About the doings of the Germans I 
only learn from the staff bulletins on the 
public notices ; I never buy any news- 
papers now. To judge by people's 
countenances, things are going badly with 
us, and the Germans are still advancing. 
I don't know how it will end, and I care 
very little ; my own end will come first. 
It escaped my notice, somehow, that on 
the Bid of the month Grodno was 
taken. 

A ghost among the living, I abandon 
myself for hours together to ghostly reflec- 
tions. I can see life as an outsider ; I 
seem to get a bird's-eye view of it from 
above. I philosophise ; mentally I arrange 
the affairs of men and governments. 
The rumbling motor vehicles, the burdened 
horses, the tense activity made me realise 
why there was a war. A man wants to 
possess more than his fellows, that is why 
189 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

we have war. And I approved of his 
desire. 

With a curiosity the living would not 
understand, I study the plan of the 
town. I like to know why it is laid out 
in roads and streets and squares. I can 
see the full importance of the tramway. 
I like the look of the block of flats 
and the porters ; I like the stone quay. 
I saw the Ochta Bridge open to let a 
steamer pass one day, and I liked that, 
too. I like the bustling crowds at the 
railway stations ; I never miss going to 
them every day. Nevertheless, I wouldn't 
mind if the whole thing collapsed. It 
would be an interesting spectacle to watch. 
I try to picture the flames and the ruins. 
The town would look very flat when it 
was over. 

I saw two aeroplanes in the sky to-day 
from the Krestovsky Island ; one made 
190 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

a circuit round the edge of a large cloud. 
Mentally I was up there flying with them, 
not without a sense of pleasure. I take 
a very lordly view of life, on the whole. 
I mean this in all seriousness. At times 
I am in the best of moods. I don't mind 
how much money I spend, and buy presents 
and sweets for the children in the most 
lordly way. I took another basket of 
fruit to Sashenka, and gave it to her very 
gallantly. 

A lord, indeed ! 

16th September, 

The town is in a ferment like a disturbed 
ant hill. Voices are raised loudly in alter- 
cation. The Duma has been dismissed. 
Our only hope was in the Duma. How 
bold the citizens of Petrograd have become 
all at once ! They shout things out in 
the streets they would have been afraid 
191 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

to speak of in a whisper in the privacy of 
their own bedrooms but a short time ago ! 
Trouble is feared. With the murmur of 
discontented voices in my ears, I think, 
" It's all very fine, my brave fellows. . . . 
But what has it to do with me ? " 

From sheer lack of something else to 
do, I went to the Taurida Palace. It 
looked just the same as on any ordinary 
day. A small crowd of us stood watching 
the members coming out. There seemed 
nothing unusual about them too ; they 
were men like other men, only a little grave 
and satisfied, perhaps, that it had fallen 
to their lot to participate in such a great 
historic event. To be dismissed in the 
hour when " the country was in danger " ! 
They came out with dignity, and sat stiff 
and upright in their carriages, looking 
grave, with the air of a specialist who 
had just finished a patient. When I 
192 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

smiled and happened to pass some jocular 
remark, a young man near me said some- 
thing about the black hundreds. I resolved 
to get away before I was mobbed, and 
really, what business had I there at all ? 
I went to the Ochta Bridge afterwards 
and expended six kopeks to go down the 
Neva on a steamer as far as the Vasily 
Island. 

The water has a strange attraction for 
me. I was very soothed to sit on the 
fore part of the ship, with the wind and 
spray beating against my face. It gave 
a pleasantness to my hopelessness and 
despair. 

11th September. 

I know now what emptiness means. 
How very weird and strange it is ! Empti- 
ness is everywhere ; it stretches from the 
moon, at which I gazed last night, to the 

n 193 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

English embankment. The houses are full 
of it ; it clings to walls and ceilings ; there 
is not a room that does not contain it ; 
knock down every wall, and nothing will 
remain between me and the stars but 
emptiness. 

I realised this very vividly at dawn 
yesterday. I had been dreaming that 
Lidotchka had come to see me, and I 
awoke. I was too restless to go to sleep 
again afterwards, so I got up and went 
into my study, where I sat down on the 
window-sill. It was getting light, but it 
was raining, and everything seemed grey 
and monotonous. There was no beginning 
or end to anything. It was still and quiet 
around me. A sense of the emptiness 
shot through me, of the emptiness with- 
in, and the emptiness without, the two 
stretching together throughout eternity. 
Emptiness was everywhere ; within it 
194 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

was heated, so that people should not 
perish of the eternal cold. And that thing 
sitting on the window-sill (I went on 
thinking) is a man, and the emptiness is 
all about him. The emptiness that is 
heated is called a house, and soon I shall 
have no house. . . . 

Then I realised where I was. Like a 
lunatic, once more I was sitting on my 
window-sill in my pants. My legs seemed 
so long and my beard so grey. Your end 
has come, Ilya Petrovitch ! 

I would have gone to bed just now, 
but the moon peeped in at my window, 
so I think I'll go out and look at it. I 
don't like having to wake the porter each 
time I go in and out ; I have only the key 
of our own flat. I shouldn't like eveiy- 
body to know if anything happened to me. 
What a dear boy Jena is ! 



195 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

19th September, 

I have seen a horrible nightmare. I 
strolled casually into the Finland railway 
station where a crowd had collected to 
meet a company of wounded expected 
back from Germany. They had been dealt 
with and sent back again, for they were 
no longer terrible. Oh, God ! Like a blind 
and deaf fool, absorbed in my own petty 
affairs, I did not realise at first why 
the crowd was there. It seemed a festive 
occasion ; flag, flowers, and band must 
have leant colour to this thought. A 
bride and bridegroom might have been 
expected to arrive. When I heard the 
truth, I went cold with horror. I stood 
waiting for the arrival of the train, unable 
to picture the sight I was to see. 

And when they arrived, and men without 
arms and legs were carried out, and the 
196 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

blind and the halt hobbled along, and the 
band struck up in honour of the warriors' 
return, my heart melted within me, and I 
wept with the rest of the crowd. When 
I shut my eyes, I could not hear the sound 
of voices ; I only heard the sound of feet 
and crutches along the platform, and the 
strains of the music. ... I couldn't 
understand what was happening. I under- 
stood no better when I opened my eyes. 
In bright- coloured shirts of blue and red 
they came, as gay as bridegrooms, but 
their arms and legs were gone. . . . Were 
these, then, the new bridegrooms of Mother 
Russia ? Who was I to look at them ? 

What a picture they made when they 
were seated at the table where a meal 
had been prepared for them ! The tears 
rolled down their cheeks and salted the 
bread of their native land that they were 
eating. How weary their faces looked ! 
197 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

They seemed as dear and familiar to me 
as the face of an old friend. Speeches 
were made to welcome them home. . . . 
And as I stood watching a blind little 
pock-marked man near me, who couldn't 
carry his spoon to his mouth, I felt 
that the earth ought to open and swallow 
me up. At that moment a young officer 
caught the eye of one of his men, a little 
fellow who had lost an arm. The officer 
came up, and the two smiled to each other, 
and when I saw that smile I could endure 
it no longer. I turned away, and pushing 
my way out of the crowd, I walked over 
to a remote corner of the station, and 
prostrated myself three times to the 
ground. 

Ah, my bridegrooms in bright -coloured 

shirts ! How heavily do the wedding 

crowns rest on your brows, and how 

burning hot are the wedding rings that 

198 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

will join you for ever to your native 
land! 

Forgive me, a sinner and outcast ! 



%0th September. 

Sashenka, my dear friend, from the 
short letter you will find on the table, 
you will see that you must seek for the 
explanation of my death in this diary. 
Read it carefully, my dear, read it in 
a friendly spirit, and you will understand, 
and perhaps approve of my resolve to 
quit a life where I was so superfluous, 
and where I suffered so much. I know 
you love me. I have a sacred belief in 
your love. I will carry this belief to our 
dear Lidotchka in her solitude that I am 
soon to join with so much joy and glad- 
ness. Yes, with joy and gladness, Sashenka. 
Don't worry yourself with the thought 
199 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

that I died suffering, that I died in terror. 
I am glad to cast off this wearisome 
life. I am but a weak creature, Sashenka. 
For three weeks I have kept from you 
the knowledge that I have lost my work, 
and that we were faced with starvation. 
I was ashamed to confess my inefficiency 
in the battle of life. Another, a stronger 
man, would have got out of his difficulties, 
and found himself some other work, but 
I couldn't. What was the good of me ? 
To live on public charity I have no right 
and no desire to do. There are men who 
have more claim on the public than I. 
I saw a company of wounded arrive at the 
station yesterday, and the bitterness of 
their lot made me weep. These are the 
men the public must help. 

As for you, my sad beauty, my heart of 
gold, I am no longer a young man, and 
my person could not have been attractive 
200 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

to you — it was only your goodness of 
heart that induced you to love me. When 
I am gone you will be free ; I only stood 
in your way. I was but a poor husband 
to you ! I did not lead you with a firm 
hand along the difficult path of life, nor 
did I illumine the darkness for you with 
the light of my wisdom. I was unkind, 
petty and egoistic. I could hide my head 
with shame when I think of the way I 
used to blame you for my digestion. It 
was I, too, who tried to drag you away 
from your self-denying work at the hospital. 
I complained of not being able to look 
after the children, forgetting that you had 
learned the more difficult task of looking 
after the wounded. To think of the injured 
expression I used to put on whenever you 
came home, or when I visited you at the 
hospital, and criticised your arrangements ! 
Please, dear, forget one thing — forget what 
201 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

/ said to you when Lidotchka died. Wipe 
out those base words from your memory 
and the cruel reproaches, or I shall never 
be able to rest in my grave. 

When the children grow up, so that they 
may have no cause to be ashamed of 
their father, don't tell them what you 
know about me. Sashenka, I have been 
cursed by Mother Russia. I heard her 
voice plainly yesterday when I saw our 
blind and maimed heroes as they returned 
from Germany. They were our defenders, 
Sashenka, yours and mine ; it broke my 
heart to see their misery. The few use- 
less tears I shed would never have seen 
the light of day had I not strolled by 
accident into the railway station. " Be 
thou accursed, base son ! " I heard the 
voice of Russia say. It was not delusion, 
Sashenka, it wasn't a dream ; I heard 
it as plainly as could be. 
202 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

You may think it madness. It would 
pain me to have you think that. There 
was a time when I was mad, dear, but that 
was in the days before I heard Russia's 
voice, in the days when I used to beat 
my breast and boast of my righteousness 
like a Pharisee, and sit in judgment upon 
those who fought. Had I been a German, 
Germany too, must have cursed me, for 
the Germans have their wounded — the 
blind and maimed, who fought to de- 
fend the rest. What have I done for 
Russia, Sashenka, in her dreadful hour 
of need ? The only thing I have done 
was not to rob her, but was that 
enough ? I knew the country was in 
danger ; I used to repeat the words 
like a parrot, but what did I do ? 
Nothing ! What damnation is contained 
in that one word ! 

Unflinchingly I carry out the sentence 
203 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

of death with my own hand — spies and 
traitors must die alike, for there is no 
room for them on earth. Russia's maternal 
voice has cursed me, and I cannot, I 
dare not live. How could I look any one 
in the face after that ? I am so useless, 
Sashenka, so superfluous that not a void 
will remain even in the place where I 
once was. No one will notice my absence, 
no one will know that I am gone. One 
thing only fills me with dread. What 
if our Lidotchka turns from me when I 
find her among the heavenly angels ? But 
no, they must surely understand better there 
than here. Perhaps the cruel suffering 
with which I paid for my insignificance 
— vain and inglorious as it was — may be 
counted in my favour. There are no 
strong and weak there ; all are equal ; 
there may be a refuge in the folds of Christ's 
garments even for me. I have settled my 
204 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

accounts on earth, and in heaven there 
will be new reckonings. 

I hope you will be happy, my dear, my 
wonderful wife. May God bless you for 
the love you gave me, for your gentle- 
ness and patience, for every touch of 
your beloved hand. Don't mourn for me. 
Have the same Mass said for the three 
of us — Pavel, warrior fallen in the field, 
Lidotchka and for me. Make no attempt 
to find my body ; it will be carried far 
out to sea. Good-bye, my dear, good-bye. 



22nd September. 

Such wonderful, divine things have 
happened that I must set them down 
all in order to avoid confusion. 

Three days have now passed. The day 
I decided to kill myself I spent with the 
children whom I took for a walk in the 
205 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

Alexandrov Garden. I bought them some 
sweets, and tried to let them have as 
pleasant a time as I could. I took home 
some special delicacy for mother's dinner. 
I wrote a letter to her son, Nikolai, by the 
way, but fortunately I didn't post it. 

When the children went to bed I made 
them say their prayers in my presence, 
then I settled up all my small cash affairs 
— it was fortunate that I had no debts — 
and wrote a letter to the police and another 
to Sashenka. At about one in the morning 
I set out for the Troitsky Bridge, from 
whence I had decided to jump into the 
river ; it was quiet and deserted at that 
hour. For greater certainty, and to spare 
myself all the suffering possible, I put 
two heavy lead weights from the old 
broken cuckoo clock in the nursery into 
my great- coat pockets, hoping to add 
stones and other heavy objects on the 
206 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

way. I may say with perfect truthfulness 
that I felt no fear at the prospect of death, 
nor any particular regrets at parting with 
life. The few tears I shed when writing to 
Sashenka were merely formal ones. 

I wondered mostly as I went along 
what my dear ones would do when I was 
gone, and how they would live. I saw 
that they might be better off without me, 
perhaps — fatherless children have more 
right to expect help. I counted, too, 
on Sashenka's brother, Nikolai, to whom 
I could not have appealed personally. 
With these thoughts I passed Moshkov 
Street, and was brought face to face with 
the dark, lonely river. The night was 
dark and clouded ; the Peter-Paul Fortress, 
on the other side, was hardly discernible ; 
a faint light glimmered dimly, the lantern 
at the Fortress gates, no doubt, and near 
there, in the darkness, the river seemed 
207 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

as broad as the sea. Suspended over the 
river, to the right, were the steady lights 
of the Troitsky Bridge, close by ; it was 
still and deserted. " At last ! " I thought, 
hugging the cold weights in my pocket, 
and my face was bathed by the fresh moist- 
ness of the water whirling silently round 
the stone parapets. " There is no need 
to hurry ; I will stay here for a while." 

It was then that the extraordinary 
thing happened to me. I can hardly ex- 
plain it in words. I'm not a fool ; on the 
contrary, I have a good deal of common 
sense. There are some things I do not 
see, others I do not know, still others I 
do not understand ; there is so little time 
for the understanding, busy as one usually 
is, but never in the whole of my experience, 
have I ever gone in for prolonged, con- 
centrated thought. At that moment, how- 
ever, a change took place ; I seemed to be 
208 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

transformed, as in a fairy tale ; a thousand 
eyes and ears seemed to have opened in 
me, and prolonged concentrated thoughts 
filled my brain. Motion was impossible. 
I had to sit or stand, but I couldn't walk. 
I forgot all words, I forgot the very names 
of things ; thoughts so big and vast took 
possession of me that each seemed large 
enough to have embraced the whole world. 
I cannot describe the condition. My first 
realisation was the sense of my manhood. 
I was the inner meaning of the words, 
people, mankind, man, such as I stood 
there with my great- coat, lead weights 
in my pockets, thinking those thoughts by 
the flowing river, in the silence of the 
night. And the other people, where were 
they ? I thought, and a vision of all the 
people in the world floated before me. 
What difference was there between the 
living and the dead ? Where do the dead 
o 209 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

go to ? Where do the living come from ? 
And again my thoughts seemed immense, 
never-ending ; and I saw all the living and 
the dead, and all the people who were to 
come, and there were numbers and numbers 
of them ; they were floating with the 
clouds beneath the moon, they came flying 
through the rays of the sun, they were in 
the rain and the wind and the river. And 
then I understood, without knowing how 
the understanding reached me, that I was 
immortal, absurdly immortal, and that 
Petrograd might perish a thousand times, 
and I should still exist. 

I was on the Troitsky Bridge by that 
time, at the very spot I had chosen for 
my leap into the water, when the absurdity 
of suicide struck me so forcibly, that in- 
stead of leaping in, I threw the lead 
weights into the water, so violently that 
the water never even splashed as they fell. 
210 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

And again I became absorbed in deep, 
prolonged thought as I gazed on the water 
flowing down the river in the light of the 
lamps. I looked up at the dark, infinite 
sky, and still vast thoughts came to me, 
and they were as clear as though I had 
been a sage who understood the meaning 
of the whole universe. A few motor-cars 
passed over the bridge, recalling me to 
myself ; I turned and waited expectantly 
for others to come, rejoicing when two 
bright electric lamps appeared at the 
bend of the bridge. The car hooted as 
it passed. 

I had been humbled. Humility is the 
only word that describes the sensation 
that came to me as I stood shivering 
with cold by the river. Suddenly, I don't 
know why, I shuddered, and was hurled 
from the heights of wisdom and under- 
standing to the depths of littleness and 
211 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

fear. My hands in my pockets clenched 
convulsively. It seemed as if my fingers 
had grown dry and drawn as a bird's 
claws. " Coward ! " I thought, and such 
a feeling of terror for the death I had 
planned came upon me, that I forgot 
I had thrown away the weights, and that 
I had decided not to kill myself before 
this terror came. I know now that it was 
real cowardice I experienced — cowardice 
pure and simple, and that there was no very 
great harm in it, but at the time my terror 
was truly awful. Where had my wisdom 
gone ? Where my big thoughts ? I stood 
on the bridge, not daring to look at 
the water, trembling so violently that my 
teeth chattered. However, desperate as I 
was, I still kept on making some attempts, 
measuring the height of the rail, and 
clutching it with my hands. " Now ! " 
I thought in despair, feeling the freedom 
212 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

of my toes ; they were in no way fixed 
to the pavement, and might leave go any 
moment, now. . . . 

And in that awful moment I suddenly 
recalled our flight from Shuvalov at the 
beginning of the war, and my Lidotchka, 
and the flower I had picked for her on the 
road, and the inexpressible terror I had 
felt then. ... So this was what I had 
feared ! This that my heart had fore- 
boded ! This, then, explained the flower 
and the haste, and the dread of looking 
behind, and the straining to go ahead, to 
hide, to seek out a refuge for oneself 
on earth ! The soul had known what 
threatened it and quaked in the frail 
human frame ! 

" My God ! It's all the war, the war ! " 

I thought, and a vision of the war and its 

horrors appeared before me. I forgot that 

I was in Petrograd, forgot that I was 

213 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

standing on the bridge, forgot everything 
surrounding me. My consciousness was 
filled only with the war, and the war was 
all about me. I can't describe this sensa- 
tion, this new terror, nor the tears that 
gushed from my eyes — I could cry now 
at the very thought of it. Some man 
passing, fortunately, happened to notice 
me. He had gone by, but turned back 
and addressed me. Close as in a mirror 
could I see his unfamiliar face and eyes 
that, for some reason, seemed awful to me. 
I backed away from him with a cry, and 
fled over the bridge to Sashenka. 

I can't remember where I got into a 
cab, nor how much I paid for my fare, 
nor how I got to the hospital, I only 
remember falling on my knees before 
Sashenka, and trembling in every limb, 
and swallowing my tears, I blurted out 
my wild, disjointed confession. . . . 
214 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

My Sashenka is a saint. I have no 
right to call her mine. She belongs to 
God, to all men. I am unworthy to 
touch her hand ; all my life I must weep 
at her feet and praise God for having 
created her. Sashenka, my heart of gold, 
my pure soul, blessed be the day when 
you were born ! 

Like a fool, I had expected reproaches, 
but this is what I heard when I could 
distinguish her divine words through my 
sobs and tears, " Never mind about your 
work, dear ; it doesn't matter. I was 
offered a salary here, but I refused to 
take it. I will take it now, and we can 
get along quite well with the children. 
We shall be together ; we must do the 
best we can. I must take you home now, 
as though you had been badly wounded. 
It will do you good to look at the 
sleeping children and to kiss mother. You 
215 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

must rest your soul, my poor, dear 
Ilenka. . . ." 

She had it in her heart to call me her 
" dear Ilenka ! " She wept over me, and 
kissed my grey hair. 

" Don't kiss my hair," I muttered, " I 
haven't been to the baths for a month." 

What did that matter to her ! Wonder- 
ful woman ! I can't remember her exact 
words ; they were not at all as I have them 
here, but I was so weak and faint at the 
time that I had to lean against the wall 
to keep myself from falling. She left me 
for a while to make some arrangement, 
and, grown calmer, I cast about the room 
where it had all taken place, wiping away 
my tears. My eyes fell upon a white overall 
with a red cross hanging on the wall, and 
again my tears gushed forth. Henceforth 
the red cross will be as sacred to me as my 
Sashenka. 

216 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

In that condition Sashenka took me 
home. I turned my face away from the 
porter as he opened the door — we live 
up a different staircase. I tried to speak, 
but my words were unintelligible, and 
Sashenka stopped me. " Don't talk now," 
she said, " wait till you are calmer. We 
can talk to-morrow." She had asked for 
a few days' leave. 

I have no clear recollection, too, of 
what happened when we got home. The 
rooms seemed very bright and festive ; they 
might have been prepared for a party. I 
kissed the sleeping children, each in turn, 
I kissed mother, whom Sashenka had 
roused, and we all cried together, smiling 
happily and foolishly. Then the samovar 
was prepared, and as I drank the hot tea, 
the tears fell into my cup. I couldn't 
stop crying for joy and pity. 

Sashenka made me a bed in my study, 
217 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

thinking I should be quieter there. She 
put on clean sheets and gave me clean 
night things, and when I got into the 
fragrant fresh bed, and lay down on my 
back with my hands on the coverlet, 
and Sashenka put a green reading-lamp 
on a little table by my side, and opened 
a book to read to me, I did indeed feel 
as if I had been badly wounded, and 
was now recovering. How pleasant was 
the very weakness with which I raised my 
eyes to the bright patch of light cast by 
the lamp on the ceiling, to the lamp itself, 
to Sashenka's chin, which was all I could 
see of her face ! 

She was reading something from Gogol, 
and though I only caught fragments of 
the story, it was as sweet and soothing 
as a pleasant dream about strange people, 
fields, country roads. " Selefan, Petrushka, 
the trap." I heard the words, I could see the 
218 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

people, yet there was the dark river, the 
motor-cars, the man seizing my hand on the 
bridge, then again came the trap and bells, 
and a long, winding country road. I fell 
asleep, but started up with a shudder, and 
when I saw the patch of light and heard 
Sashenka's reassuring voice, I dropped into 
a sound, peaceful sleep at last. 

When I awoke in the morning Sashenka 
was sitting by the little table with tears 
in her eyes. She had just finished reading 
this stupid diary, and looked so sweet 
after her sleepless night spent by my side. 
Dear, divine Sashenka ! 

25th September. 

We have moved to the house of Sash- 
enka's friend, Fimotchka, with whom we 
have rented two rooms, inhabited formerly 
by some refugee. The refugee was igno- 
miniously turned out ; we, too, were 
219 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

refugees. Fimotchka is the j oiliest person 
imaginable ; she is always laughing. God 
knows how I love these two tiny rooms, and 
Fimotchka's jokes against my sensibility. 

I might have moved to a palace for I 
feel as free as a king. Fimotchka has a 
canary, and I foolishly stand at its cage 
watching its antics for half an hour at a 
time. 

I can't talk about important things 
now, that must come later. 

The Germans continue to advance. 



26th September. 

I find it difficult to see myself as Sashenka 
describes me, but I have faith in each of 
my blessed angel's words. What a horrible 
picture it is of myself, to be sure ! No 
wonder I was such a stranger to Sashenka. 
Absorbed as I was in my own sorrows, I 
220 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

failed to notice her tears ; to each kind 
word I answered with a vicious growl — 
like a dog who had been deprived of a 
bone. How incredibly vain were my fears 
and my pride when I had lost my work ! 
Other men might lose their work and have 
to beg, only I was too exalted for that ! 
Other men might lose their children, only 
I must cry aloud and beat my breast ! 
Other men might have their houses burnt 
and their property destroyed, and be 
subjected to all kinds of misfortunes, only 
I must be guarded sacredly against any 
ill wind ! Other men might fight and 
suffer, while I, like a retired school-master, 
must sit up at night to prepare my lessons, 
to moralise to unwilling ears, and to set 
the conduct marks. Here's minus for you, 
Germany ! Go into the corner ! All you 
fools must stand in the corner ! I'm the 
only sensible person among you, and I 
221 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

will sit in the cathedra and sing my own 
praises ! 

I wonder how Sashenka came to see it ? 
What a dear she is ! She says it's so 
plain to anyone. If it is, what made me 
so blind ? The same reason, no doubt, 
that prompts me to ask these useless 
questions. I see it all so clearly, yet will 
put marks of interrogation from force of 
habit. How stupid of me ! 

There seems nothing to which I can 
compare my present lightness of heart. I 
am afraid of nothing. Nothing in the world 
is terrible ; I created my own terror. 
If the Germans come, what of it ? If 
we must run away, we will run away ; 
if we must die, we will die. Peter and 
Jena are dearer to me than ever, but even 
the thought of their death does not fill 
me with dread. I should mourn for them 
bitterly, no doubt, but I refuse to bow 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

down to death, I refuse to invite her as 
my guest ! Besides, the idea of death is 
ridiculous ; those we love never die, 
Sashenka says. 

Last night Fimotchka kept on calling 
me old man. It was " Well, old man " 
here, " well, old man " there, until Sashenka 
was quite hurt and rebuked her for it. I 
didn't mind in the least ; I knew she 
was only joking. I had a great desire, 
nevertheless, to see myself in the glass. 
Supposing it were true ! I don't look so 
old, really ; no one would take me for more 
than forty-six, but there's a something 
about the eyes and in my smile, and in my 
ever-ready tears. . . . But I have a good 
many years to live yet, and am as strong 
as most men. Fimotchka says my exten- 
sive exercise through the town must have 
hardened me a lot. I don't mind her 
chaff. 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

We are all, except mother, delighted 
with our new home. It is hard to under- 
stand why the old lady was so grieved 
by the removal. She collapsed completely, 
and though this is the second day we have 
been here, she is lying on her bed with her 
face to the wall, dozing silently. When 
we burst the news on her suddenly about 
my having lost my work, little foreseeing 
how it would affect her, we grew quite 
alarmed at her condition. She turned pale, 
and trembled all over like a leaf. When 
all the furniture had been removed from 
the house, she still refused to leave her 
room, and wept when we led her away. 
Yesterday she summoned Sashenka, and 
speaking in a whisper, asked her to fetch 
Pavel. Sashenka said she would, of course, 
and fortunately, the poor old lady did not 
repeat her request. I have just looked in 
to see them. They are all asleep — mother, 

m 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

Sashenka, and the children. Nurse sleeps 
in Fimotchka's drawing-room while Sash- 
enka is here. 

I managed to sell our spare furniture 
to advantage, and got that burden off my 
mind. Sashenka is to remain with us 
for another day, and then she goes back 
to the hospital. She offered to look out 
for some useful occupation for me. Can 
I ever express the respect I feel for her ! 
She dragged me out from the bottomless 
pit into which I had fallen. . . . 

Fimotchka came back from some friends, 
and finding me still up, sat with me for 
an hour talking about the horrors of the 
German invasion. From her pallor and 
disjointed womanly words I realised more 
than from the papers, with what horror 
and anxiety the German invasion is awaited 
by our capital and by the whole country. 
Oh, Lord, spare Russia ! Spare her cities, 
p 225 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

her people, her houses and cottages ! Spare 
us, not for what we deserve, oh, Lord, nor 
for our riches ; have mercy on us for our 
ignorance and poverty, as you used to be 
merciful to the ignorant and poor when 
you walked on earth ! 

I can't go to sleep. I want to be up 
and doing. My hands, hanging idly, irritate 
me. I should like to scrub the floor, if it 
had not been scrubbed already. I must 
send Sashenka back to the hospital 
to-morrow. I am quite well enough now, 
and we mustn't put it off any longer 
than can be helped. 

Oh, that my chest were thirty versts 
broad so that I could place it in front of 
a German gun as a shield for others ! 

28^ September. 
I have had two promises of work, as a 
clerk on a refugee committee with a small 
226 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

salary, the other at the front in the ambul- 
ance service. I should prefer the second, 
but will take the first, if necessary. 

Mother is much worse, and calls con- 
tinually for Pavel. 

1st October. 

I go about with a collecting box for the 
wounded. 

3rd October. 

I could never have believed what in- 
expressible happiness can be found in 
tears. Crying used to make my head ache, 
bring a bitter taste to my mouth, and a 
leaden feeling to my heart, but now I find 
it as pleasant and easy to cry as to love. 
I realised this particularly during the two 
days of my wandering through the streets 
of Petrograd with a collecting box in my 
hand. Each contribution, every mark of 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

sympathy for the wounded, filled me with 
deep emotion. How kind people were ! 
How many hearts of gold passed before 
my happy eyes ! 

As an assistant I had a lively little school- 
boy, of untiring energy, who made my 
long legs serve me in good stead. Together 
we went to the Ochta district, and there, 
amongst poor workers and labourers, we 
spent many hours of exultation. 

11 Don't they give ! " Fedia the school- 
boy said to me. " Don't they give ! All 
you've got to do is to take it ! " 

44 Yes, Fedia, all you've got to do is to 
take it ! " I laughed at his naive words 
with humid eyes. And when I saw an 
old, long-bearded carter who turned with 
difficulty to give me his copper, I loved the 
sight of his hand and his beard, I loved 
everything about him as the most precious 
of human realities that no war can eclipse. 
228 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

I like, too, the way they are not the 
least ashamed that their contributions 
are smaller than those on the Nevsky or 
Morskaya. Some asked me if Fedia was 
my son. 

" No, we are friends,' ' Fedia hastened 
to assure them. He always seemed hurt 
on these occasions ; he probably felt too 
big to be anybody's son. He would insist 
on carrying the heavy box until he was 
fagged out, making me pin on the badges, 
and altogether ordering me about in the 
most dignified way. 

Twice the boxful of coins changed 
hands between us. Carried away by our 
enthusiasm, we walked until we could 
scarcely drag ourselves along ; Fedia was 
particularly tired. It was getting dark 
when we emerged from a little street 
facing a cotton-mill with smoking chimneys, 
and sat down on a beam to rest. For a 
229 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

long time we sat there enjoying the glorious, 
tranquil evening, the barges and ships on 
the broad Neva, the sunset's glow on the 
misty clouds. I shall never forget that 
evening. Disturbed by a passing tug, the 
water rippled against the flat bank, the 
Ochta children paddled quietly in the 
shadows of the large barges that crept 
along the bank, playing their evening 
games ; blue lights began to appear on the 
bank opposite. My soul was as innocent 
as though I had turned into a little child. 
It was Fedia who talked ; I was silent. 
He talked about the Germans for a while, 
then he, too, grew quiet and pensive. 
Some soldiers passed over the Ochta Bridge, 
and above the din of the traffic we caught 
fragments of their song. 

" The soldiers are singing," Fedia started. 
" Where are they ? " 

■ ' On the bridge. Listen, listen ! " 
230 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

How nice it is that our soldiers sing 
in their natural voices, unspoiled by train- 
ing ! Their voices speak of their youth, 
their country, their people, of Russia her- 
self. The song died away ; it began to get 
dark ; on the bank opposite lights appeared 
in windows and streets, and still I thought 
of our soldiers and Russia. Russia ! Won- 
drous word ! As in a dream I could see an 
Autumn country road, lights twinkling in 
the peasant cottages, a peasant standing 
at his cart. The very horse was dear to 
me. I thought of its eternal toil with 
gratitude ; I thought of other horses, 
other villages, other towns. ... I had 
dozed off, it turned out, and Fedia had 
fallen fast asleep. It was a good thing 
the nights were still warm. I picked up 
his cap that had slipped from his head, and 
had great difficulty in rousing him ; I 
simply had to force him to open his eyes. 
231 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

" I can't go on ! " he muttered. 

" I would carry you if I had the strength. 
Let's go as far as the steamer, and then we 
can take a tram." 

" Very well," Fedia agreed. My little 
chum had a great partiality for steamers. 

Thus we worked together for two days. 
It rained yesterday, unfortunately, and 
we were obliged to stop our collecting, 
but the feeling of gladness remains as 
before. Brightly does man illumine the 
Autumn mud and bad weather. 

I am going to get a place at the front, 
it seems. 

1th October. 

Mother is dead. For a long time she 
has only feigned to live, and now she has 
gone to join her Pavel. Will she find 
him ? But I know that they are in the 
same place, and that my Lidotchka is 
232 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

there, too, and that I will be there when 
my time comes. 

So many people are dying ! They seem 
hewn down as by a wood-cutter's axe ; each 
day the familiar forest grows thinner. 

There is a stubborn rumour which the 
newspapers support, that the German ad- 
vance is over. They have been advancing 
steadily since the spring, and now they 
have stopped by Riga and Dvinsk. Never- 
theless, as though divided from us by no 
more than a low wall, we seem to see their 
ruthless eyes peeping out at us, and the 
days dwindle in dark incertitude. 

13th October. 

How sad and pitiful human beings are ! 

How difficult their lot in this world, how 

trying for their enigmatical souls ! What 

does the human soul grope for ? To what 

233 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

end is it striving through blood and 
tears ? 

Each day I hear tales about the sad pro- 
cession of refugees from Poland and Vol- 
hinia along every road. We have grown 
so used to the word " refugee," meeting 
it in print and counting it in figures, that 
we do not realise its meaning. What 
woeful pictures they must make along the 
roads, even now at this moment, with 
their rumbling carts, their ailing children, 
crying and coughing, their hungry bellow- 
ing cattle ! What large numbers of them 
there are ! Whole nations moving from 
place to place, and, like Lot's wife, looking 
back at the smoke and the flames of the 
burning towns and villages behind them ! 
There are not enough carts or horses, 
and one hears that bullocks and big dogs 
are harnessed, and sometimes men, too, 
and they drag their own loads as man 
234 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

must have dragged his belongings in ancient 
days when he was first pursued. . . . 

How difficult it is to imagine the sights 
that are to be seen along our roads ! 
The refugees stream down the usually de- 
serted, muddy country roads, making them 
crowded as the Nevsky on a holiday. 
How long will this unknown force pur- 
sue us ? 

Another sad piece of news came to-day. 
The Bulgarians have attacked the Serbians 
in some place called Kniajevetz. Even this 
we were not spared. Brothers are to 
kill brothers. The soul shrinks at the 
thought that this race is to perish, that 
this sparsely-grown meadow is not to be 
spared the mower's scythe. With what 
feelings of anguish must they be waiting 
and listening for the advance ! " They 
are coming ! " It would not take much 
to wipe out the Serbs. Didn't the 
235 



CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

Turks massacre eight hundred thousand 
Armenians, as the papers tell us ? But why 
speak of it ? I weep and weep ; I pity 
them all; each moment the heart is torn 
by some fresh disaster. I don't know 
whether to pray for the chastisement of 
the Bulgarian traitors or to bow down 
to the incomprehensible mysteries of the 
human soul. 

An article I happened to come across 
about the poor Armenians, brought me 
nearer to cursing than to pity and tears. 
It took me the whole of a sleepless night 
to get over it. This is what was seen by 
an eye-witness : I set it down word for 
word. " The most awful sights were seen 
by our unique eye-witness in Bitlis. He 
had scarcely reached Bitlis when in a wood 
he came upon a group of newly massacred 
men, and near them, completely naked, 
and hanging feet upwards, were three 
236 



DURING GREAT DAYS 

women. Close to one of the women, 
with arms outstretched to its mother, 
was a year-old child. The mother was 
still alive, her face bloodshot ; she, too, 
stretched out her arms to the child, but 
they could not reach each other." 

How could I sleep with that awful 
image before my eyes ? It was as much 
as I could do to breathe. The blood rushed 
to my head as though I had been hanging 
by my feet, and at moments I nearly 
choked. I did not shed tears, curiously ; 
my tears were dry for that night. I was 
filled with a raging fury ; I wanted to 
curse those murderers. I say nothing of 
the newly massacred men — have we not 
accustomed ourselves to regard men as 
sheep, and to be touched only by a con- 
ventional emotion in like circumstances ? 
and have we not enough of these " newly 
slaughtered " in our own slaughter-house ? 
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CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

but the woman and the child ! The woman 
and the child. . . . 

She was still living ; she might have 
been hanging like that, head downwards, 
for half an hour, for an hour, perhaps. 
What horrible red circles must have danced 
before her eyes when the blood rushed 
to her brain ? How did she breathe ? 
How did her heart beat ? And through 
the turbid redness, through the dark 
obscurity of death, she could distinguish 
the image of her child ; she could see 
only her crawling infant with what re- 
mained of her sight, and with all the human 
force she possessed, she stretched out her 
purple arms to it, and her purple swollen 
face. To any other being that horrible 
purple face would have been terrifying, 
but the innocent babe strove to get to her, 
still knowing her to be his mother. " But 
they could not reach each other." 
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DURING GREAT DAYS 

In the wildest nightmare the whole of 
that night I tried to unite those out- 
stretched hands. Each moment it seemed 
that success was mine, that the hands would 
touch, and that some eternally glorious 
life would come about with that contact, 
but some unknown force seemed to drag 
them asunder, and me with them. I 
shook myself, to come to my senses (I 
regretted that I had given up smoking ; 
a smoke would have been very soothing 
just then) but again the nightmare returned, 
and it seemed to have neither beginning 
nor end. Once more I was trying to unite 
the hands ; they seemed so close ; but 
again that unknown, invisible force dragged 
them apart. The blood that rushed to 
my head and the despair nearly choked 
me. The nightmare became truly awful 
in the end. The hands no longer strove 
towards each other, but were stretched out 
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CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

to me, to my throat, and they seemed to 
grip it like a vice, and there were not four 
hands only, but numbers and numbers 
of them. . . . 

Fimotchka rushed in when she heard 
my groans, to find out what was the 
matter. She gave me some ether and 
valerian drops, and had a soothing effect 
on me by the sight of a living person. 
When she was gone the nightmare returned, 
but not in its acutest form. The hands 
were no longer at my throat, but striving 
vainly to touch each other as at first, 
and I was holding forth eloquently in our 
office on the subject, and waving my long 
arms about. It was not until morning 
that I fell into a dreamless sleep. To-day 
I was filled with many strange thoughts 
and emotions. I stared at every pair of 
hands I saw, whether busy or idle, and 
longed for their union. I thought of 
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DURING GREAT DAYS 

Sashenka's mother and of mothers in 
general. I wonder why a mother doesn't 
see that in mourning for her own son she 
is aiming at some other woman's son, and 
that all are mourning alike ? Perhaps 
they do see it ? the thing is so simple. 
Another force is at work. Who is it strives 
for union, and who prevents it ? " But 
they could not reach each other," the 
eye-witness said. 

My anger has left me, my sadness re- 
turned, and once more the tears flow. 
Whom can I curse, whom can I judge, 
when we are all alike unfortunate ? Suffer- 
ing is universal ; hands are outstretched 
to each other, and when they touch, Mother 
Earth and her Son, the great solution will 
come. But I will not live to see it. And 
what have I done to deserve it ? As a 
" cell " I have lived, as a " cell " I must 
die. The only thing I can ask of fate 
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CONFESSIONS OF A LITTLE MAN 

is that my suffering and my death should 
not have been wasted. I accept both 
submissively. But I cannot quite resign 
myself to this helplessness. My heart is 
aglow, and I stretch out my hand and 
cry, " Come, let us join hands ! I love 
you, I love you. . . ." 
And my tears flow fast. 

nth January 1916. 



242 



